Flight of a Shadow
by tavannaleah
Summary: A young woman called Aurora runs away from home. Also, pancakes. Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**I didn't know that Aurora was actually a name of the villager in the game before I made this, but I promise you, this isn't her.**

I turned my head a little in response to the sound across the bus aisle. A friendly-looking cat was sitting there, watching me intently. I stared out the window uncomfortably and pretended not to notice his ogling, my legs firmly pressed together under the hem of my skirt. This was the first time I'd ever gone alone on public transportation, and I had heard of all of the shady things that might happen if I wasn't careful.

"Hey," said the cat. "Are you okay? You look a little lonely."

I stared at the rickety floor of the bus. "No. I'm fine."

"If you don't mind me being so forward," the cat began, "what's your name? I keep thinking I know you – something about the eyes, maybe. And then the light hits you differently and I'm sure that you're a total stranger."

I relaxed a little. If that was all… "You're probably thinking of my sister. She's a designer – I mean, a really good one. Gracie even bought her products once. She never shuts up about it now – anyway, that's probably why you think you know me."

"What's your sister's name?" asked the cat, frowning.

"Her name's Holly Swann."

"Oh, right! The Swann Princess. Almost everyone I know raves about her designs almost as much as they do Gracie's," confided the cat. "I'm Rover, by the way. I heard that Holly had a sister, but I never found out her name. You are…?"

"Aurora. Aurora Swann."

"That's a really cute name. What town are you going to? I mean," added Rover as he anticipated my closed expression, "if you don't mind telling me. It's not like you're saying your address or anything. Although I guess with towns this small, just saying the country you're in is tantamount to an address," he said thoughtfully.

"I'm going to Falcon."

"Really? The place by the coast? Aww," said Rover as I nodded in assent. "Look at you, heading off on your own with probably no cash and only a few clothes. I wonder what's driving you to such a small town as Falcon? Don't tell me you ran away from home."

I shifted on the edge of my seat.

"No. Really? Wow, you've got guts. I only left home because the rest of my family expected me to, and that was because of college."

"Falcon's comin' up in a few minutes," intoned the driver. "Falcon, coming up."

"Well, Aurora," said Rover. "I hope you have a really great time in Falcon. Maybe we'll meet up again sometime. Oh, wait!" He rummaged in his pockets for a second. "Here." Across the aisle, he passed me a slip of paper. "They supply you with a working phone in your attic. Anything happens to you, you get in trouble, you call me and I'll come spring you. Got it?" Before I could answer, he stood up and walked down the bus aisle to confer with the driver, then gave me one nod and leapt nimbly out the door of the moving vehicle.

I watched out the window in shock as he rolled, stood up, and walked erectly away. Then the bus had passed the cat and he was gone. "Does he always do that?" I asked in a hushed whisper, half to myself.

"Yup," said the driver. "Here's yer stop, miss. And be sure to come again and take another ride, wherever you want, my wee barnacle!" I ignored his sexually explicit hand motion, turning away to lift my suitcase that I could have sworn was lighter when I got on. I hopped out of the bus and looked around, my eyes bleary from the smoke of the bus.

I had arrived at Falcon.


	2. Chapter 2

I looked around nervously, running a hand though my short, spiky black hair. Something white flitted to the ground, and I stooped to pick it up. Of course. It was the phone number Rover had given me. I didn't think I'd ever need it, but he had told me that if I was ever in trouble I was to call that number, so I thought it would be better not to lose it. I stuck the phone number into my pocket and heaved on my suitcase.

The map that I picked up from the ground next to the bus station – presumably dropped as someone got ready to go to the City – directed me to the town hall. I yanked on my suitcase, panting, before I managed to push open the building's door with one hand.

"Oh, please, not in here!" A pelican hurried up to me. "Sorry. I'm Pelly. I'd prefer you leave your suitcase outside. The especially heavy ones create tracks on the carpet, and we can't find a way to get them out." Indeed, I could see a path of scratched carpet leading me up to the front desk. "I apologize, miss, but if you could just leave it outside on the luggage bench…?"

After heaving the suitcase up onto the bench outside, I reentered the town hall and went up to the front desk. "Hi. My last name's Swann? I think I reserved a house here before I started traveling?" As the pelican checked her paperwork, I fidgeted nervously. What if my mail hadn't come in, or what if Pelly had thrown it away, believing it to be junk mail?

"Swann, yes, Swann. You did indeed register here. We have two houses open right now, and I wasn't sure which one you'd like, so I put the paperwork in for here." She held out a map identical to the one I had. She pointed to a little icon just above a river, not too far from the town hall. "I sent a letter to your house's landlord, Tom Nook. If you go to his shop" – she pointed to another icon – "he'll give you the key and tell you how much you owe him in rent."

I nodded. I wasn't too concerned about how much I owed him, as I had expected this when I ran away from home. "So, I'm not really clear on some stuff about this town… It's something I really should have asked before I moved, but whatever."

"Go ahead, dearie," said the pelican. I, who am not fond of being called "dearie," glared at her before continuing the discussion.

"How… shady is this place? I mean," I amended as Pelly looked shocked. "I know small towns can be kind of sketchy. And as I'm going to be living here, I'd like to know if there's any black-market stuff going on." I was reasonably sure that Rover would have told me if Falcon was disreputable (he seemed like a nice and helpful cat), but then again he had given me his phone number in case I got into trouble. Why would he do that if there wasn't trouble to get into?

"Oh, dearie," fluttered the pelican. "Of course this place isn't – isn't 'shady.' Ask anyone. Falcon is a town – a small town, inarguably, but with a very good reputation." The shock of my question seemed to have worn off, as she was shuffling her paperwork again with the air of somebody who has nothing better to do but fidget. I made a quick excuse and exited the building, grabbing my unimaginably heavy suitcase on the way.

The shop that she had referred me to was on the edge of town, practically neighbors to the place that was to be my home. I stopped at my little house on my way to rest and check it out. Of course, it was locked; Tom Nook or whoever it was Pelly had mentioned supposedly had the key. But I looked in the windows, and although the cabin was small, it captured my heart at first glance. I left my suitcase outside the door, tired of lugging it around everywhere.

Tom Nook's shop was only a little bit larger than my house, and almost twice as shoddy-looking. Still, it was inhabited and cleaned every day, so I ranked it over my house at the present time. I pushed on the door with my right hand, sending a tinkle through the building as the miniature bell rang. Tom Nook looked up. He was a raccoon, which makes sense, as I knew raccoons were almost as bad as magpies when it comes to bling. It would certainly explain his business sense. I waved away the dust as I walked forward.

"Aurora Swann?" I said. It came out as a question.

"Ah, yes. Miss Aurora. You've been the talk of the town, I must say. I've got your key to your house right here. I assume Pelly told you about where your property is, hm?" He handed me a small silver key. I slipped that into my pocket alongside the bit of paper Rover had given me. "Good, good. Yes-yes. Your mortgage is at the moment…" He glanced down at a folder on his front counter. "Nineteen thousand Bells, but you don't have to pay it all immediately, don't you worry. You work at your own pace, understand?"

I was still dry-heaving from the mere mention of the sum of nineteen thousand Bells. I knew it was a small figure compared to, for instance, what Tom Nook probably made in a year, but I was most certainly not Tom Nook. I hadn't even _touched_ nineteen thousand Bells before. "Yeah. I understand. Thank you," I replied hurriedly as I backpedaled out of the tiny store. Once outside, I noticed that the sky was deepening to a pink. It had been longer than I'd thought since I left home. I hurried along to the little house I now owned and fumbled with the key in the door. It fit easily, and I was enchanted. I had always had a strange affinity with keys and locks, especially keys and locks that fit smoothly.

I didn't have much time to take in my surroundings once I was inside. My muscles were aching from dragging that suitcase everywhere. It just seemed to get heavier and heavier the more I pulled it. So, all I really wanted was to lie down in a soft bed, which I located in the attic. My sore muscles were under the soft covers within minutes.


	3. Chapter 3

My head was spinning unpleasantly from the dust when I opened my eyes. For a second my present surroundings were a mystery. Then I blinked, and the dark blobs above me swirled into rafters. A vision popped into my head of the little house I now owned, and I was once again enchanted by the image of the secluded little house straight out of a storybook. I got dressed out of the few clothes I'd brought in my suitcase and checked to make sure I had my house key.

Downstairs, my house had nothing much but a singular, fresh unlit candle, with the label still attached to the bottom of the wax; and a tape player. I was dimmed momentarily by the meager amount of furniture before I remembered that I was supposed to have brought my own. I'd do some shopping later in the City when I had time.

I left the house with high spirits. First on my agenda was to get breakfast, but when I'd examined the map, I hadn't seen any restaurants or other places to eat. In puzzlement, I wandered throughout the town, but half an hour later I was still hungry and becoming weary and frustrated. I was a city girl and wasn't cheerful about the prospect of scavenging for my own food. So as my feet began to ache, I began to walk to the town hall, my pride at surviving on my own rather tarnished.

"Hey! You're the new girl, right?"

The call came from behind me. I turned in surprise to see a short female squirrel standing not four feet from me. She seemed to have just stood up out of a flower bed; holding a watering can casually in her hand, with sunglasses pushed onto her head. "Er – yeah, that's right," I said, trying to identify her from the list of residents I'd studied before I came to Falcon. "My name's Aurora. Who're you?"

"Cordelia, but I prefer to be called Delly. Would you like to come in?" she said, interpreting my expression. "There's nowhere much to eat around here, but most of the villagers will let you come in and have a cup of tea or share their breakfast. I've got blueberry pancakes on the griddle."

"I wouldn't want to take your food," I said nervously.

"Oh, don't worry. I've wanted to share pancakes with everyone I know each time I make them, but my friends usually have already gotten their own breakfasts started." Delly paused to take a breath. "Seriously though, if you haven't got anywhere else to be, I'd love for you to come visit. C'mon, pancakes don't eat themselves! Usually," she added as an afterthought. She put down her watering can next to a fresh crop of roses and eyed me eagerly for my answer.

I tried to act as though I had to consider it. My stomach rumbled traitorously. "Okay. Thank you." I followed her inside. "Are those roses outside yours?"

"The white ones? Yeah, they are. I've always loved white roses, I don't know why, really. But this is my best batch so far. I'm training for the Flower Fest." Delly stopped for a second to turn on a lamp, illuminating her kitchen. She started fussing with some delicious-looking pancakes as I stood uncertainly next to a table. "Oh, go ahead, sit down! These are almost ready, I just have to flip them."

I sat down at the table as Delly flipped the pancakes to check the bottoms. We started chatting with each other before I worked up the courage to ask her a few questions. "So – how long have you lived in Falcon?"

She laughed. "No one really stays long here – with the exception of me. I've been here for almost four years now. I'm guessing the mayor will kick me out soon just because I'm preventing variation." Delly slapped a few pancakes onto a big plate and ladled more batter onto the griddle. She brought the pancakes over to my table and started dividing them up onto each of our smaller plates. "Here, you have the ones with the most blueberries."

"No, really, you made them," I said politely, trying to push them in her direction.

"But you're my guest."

"You go ahead and have them."

"Fine, just to stop an all-out war," she laughed. Out of all the people I'd met in Falcon so far, the one I liked the most was this little squirrel. Later on, we were to become the best of friends, and we'd go on all kinds of adventures together. But that, regrettably, is another story. I finished up with my pancakes gratefully and said goodbye to Delly.

"See you," said Delly. I thanked her again for the pancakes and left, unsure if I was being rude or not. I knew that my mother had always said to stay at least fifteen minutes after a meal just to be polite, but Delly didn't seem to be offended. She waved out the window as I walked in the direction of my house.


	4. Chapter 4

**As you probably guessed, I invented Delly. There may be a squirrel named Cordelia in the game, but if there is, I haven't met her; also, no offense to anyone who lives in a small town when I mentioned they may be "sketchy." Obviously, I didn't mean you.**

**P.S. I promise the "Romance" part of this is coming! But it might not be with whom you expect.**

A few days had passed before I plucked up the courage to visit Delly again. I wasn't sure whether she was just being nice to the new kid, and my self-confidence wasn't that great, so I spent most of my time at Tom Nook's trying to pick out furniture I could afford or hunched up in my house reading a book. But finally, I was passing the town hall when I looked around and Delly was in her flower bed again. When she saw me, her face brightened.

"I thought you weren't coming around to see me again!"

"I've been exploring," I lied. "Writing letters, getting used to Falcon, you know. I didn't really have time to come around." I have never been a good liar, but Delly didn't seem to notice. I continued, "I've been thinking of going to the City. Want to come?"

"The City? Sure, but I seriously don't have enough money – or a shopping card. How much do you have? I'll pay you back."

"I have two thousand Bells left from the cash I brought."

"Two thousand? That wouldn't even buy you a _shoelace _in GracieGrace."

"GracieGrace? Isn't that the place where all those expensive clothes are?"

In the end, we decided to try going to the City just to look at the pretty clothes and the furniture in GracieGrace. I had enough for a visit to the Marquee, too, and Delly said that if we pooled our money we might have enough to both get new hairstyles. I agreed happily to the idea of an outing to bond with Delly, although I had the nagging feeling that I should be trying to pay off my house. Oh well, I had just arrived at Falcon; I ought to have some breathing room.

We gathered together our spare Bells and headed purposefully towards the bus stop. The bus picked us up, and I felt residual apprehensiveness as we boarded it; but I reminded myself that I hadn't met any perverts or rapists yet, the one person I had met on the bus so far seemed nice and helpful, and I was also with my friend this time. We rode sitting side by side until finally the vehicle pulled up next to the City.

"Bye, ladies," the bus driver said, winking roguishly. "If you need someone to carry packages to the car, just ask me!"

And then there was him. Oh well, I was still with my friend. Delly and I hopped out of the bus and looked around. I wasn't too stunned by the amazing display of lights and the enormous fountain; as I've said before, I was a city girl. Delly turned to me. "So, Aurora, where do you want to go first?" she asked. "And do you mind if I call you Aurie?"

"Aurie?" I asked, raising my eyebrow at her.

"It rolls off the tongue easier," she said, shrugging. "Don't get me wrong, I love the name Aurora – but, well, it's got _three whole syllables."_

I started to laugh, and answered her earlier question. "I want to go over and get my hair styled. I like the way my hair's so short, but I've always wanted to try being platinum blonde. Do you think I could pull it off?" I spun around as we started to walk together. Delly nodded appreciatively.

"I think you'd make a good blonde, but I like your natural hair color. I've never met anyone with hair so dark."

We debated and finally Delly suggested that we'd wait on the hair issue, and instead go and visit the Marquee, as it was one of the cheapest areas. We would see if we could still afford a hair styling each later.

"Eight hundred Bells for a ticket?" I said to Delly when we were in the Marquee lobby, my eyebrows raised. "And you call that cheap?"

"If you think eight hundred is expensive, when we go to GracieGrace, you'll probably have a heart attack," she shot back. We paid for tickets and made our way into the dark theater of the Marquee, trying to be quiet as we picked out seats. Someone shushed us as we climbed over their knees into the back row.

We opted for seats in the center of the back row. Delly rose to her feet. "I'm gonna go get popcorn," she said to me in a hushed whisper. "Keep my seat, okay?"

I nodded at her and sat, bored, as she left the theater. There wasn't much to do as I waited for the show to begin, so I began looking around at the other patrons of the cinema. There was a blonde duck sitting in the front, her arms crossed and looking bossy; there was a slender reserved-looking deer sitting shyly with her ankles overlapped a few seats away; a male rhino was thumping the seat impatiently not too far from me. I glanced again and again at the female deer. She looked about as shy as I did when I wasn't in my natural element. I suppose the deer came from a small town like Falcon, while I had moved from the city and so therefore wasn't too shy in environments like this. I pitied her, remembering the fear I had harbored at being noticed while I lurked in the shadows of my little house.

Delly returned holding two bags of popcorn. She was balancing a soda in the crook of her elbow and looked rather ungainly, so I leapt up to help her. We were soon wrestling, and Delly kept whispering, "It's fine, Aurie! I've got it!" when the show started.

In surprise and sudden haste at sitting down with the theater food, one of the popcorn bags fell to the floor. We both ducked hurriedly as the lights dimmed and began trying to rescue the popcorn that hadn't spilled onto the sticky floor of the cinema. I felt soft hooves helping us and to my surprise looked up to the deer, who had instinctively stood up to help us when we dropped the popcorn. With her help, the popcorn was quickly rescued; I sent her a silent look of gratitude as she slipped back to her seat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Yay! Another chapter in. I swear that the Romance part is coming. Just give the Terrible Twosome some time to explore the City first! (Hint: Aurora's special someone will be met in the City. If y'all are good I might make that person be in the next chapter.) By the way, thank you, Vwulf, for reviewing, and aww! You're too sweet. :)**

Delly and I walked out of the Marquee feeling disgusted and cheated. "Eight hundred Bells. Eight hundred that I'm never gonna see again," I ranted as we made our way through the square of the City. "Eight hundred Bells that I could have spent on new clothes or on food. How do they stay open?!"

"I don't know, Aurie," said my friend, grinning. She had found the experience enjoyable, not because the show was good, but because it was so bad she couldn't help giggling uncontrollably and choking on her popcorn. "Where are we going next?"

I caught a glimpse of the elusive deer hurrying lithely down the square in the direction of the hair stylist, Shampoodle's. I grabbed Delly's arm. "Let's go get our hair done now, okay?" The truth was, the deer seemed like she might be a good friend, and I really wanted to find out more about her. She looked like every friend I'd had in my hometown, and seeing somebody as remarkable as that grabbed my attention.

"Okay," said Delly, and opened up the argument yet again about whether I should dye my hair blonde or not. We bickered as we fought our way through the small throng of people in the City toward Shampoodle's, and albeit the arguing, I found that I was really enjoyed myself. I finally surrendered to Delly's plea for me to keep my natural hair color just as we entered the salon.

"All right, fine, you win," I said as we pushed open the door together. It had started sprinkling outside, so we huddled for cover under the awning. "I'll keep my hair black."

"Yay!" Delly clapped her hands.

"But I'm not changing the style," I warned as we stepped into the hairdresser's. "I like my natural spikiness." My hair was unruly and stuck up in all the wrong places, giving the sense that I was a particularly hairy hedgehog. I didn't mind; humans were rare in parts like this, so the ability to blend in as an animal kept me from being differentiated in a crowd too easily. I wasn't a big fan of people taking second glances towards me.

"Hello, sugar," said the hairdresser, looking past me to stare at Delly. I wasn't surprised. My scruffy mane didn't usually welcome me in hair salons. "My name's Harriet, and I'll be your personal stylist for this session. Why don't you follow me back here so I can rinse that mop of yours?" she said, addressing me when she realized I wasn't just there to observe. I suppressed a grin as I followed her into the dimmed back room.

"My," said Harriet, almost painfully, as she took in the mess that was my hair up close. "Would you like me to clean up the cut a little? So there aren't… sections?" She grimaced as she found that the choppy style I sported had layers where the hair had almost five inches in difference. But I had been searching for a hairdo that fit my head for years, and this one was the only one I'd come across that worked with my face so perfectly. I wasn't changing it.

"No thanks," I said happily as I hopped into a chair. "But you could wash it, please. And –" I deliberated for a second. "Don't mention this to my friend, but would you mind dying it? I've been thinking blonde…"

"Honey, no offense, but I thought that this cut couldn't get any worse if I tried to change it, but…" Her revolted face told the whole story. I didn't take her comments personally. After all, she was a professional, creator of perfect, symmetrical cuts, and my hair was far from even. Try 'knife-wielding rhinoceros'.

I agreed to her request to try to condition and shampoo my hair, as it couldn't do any harm. My hair needed a wash anyway. "All right," she told me. "Just lie back now with your head in the sink, and hey, about my comment about blonde not being good for you…? It's not the color. It's just that black works with your face, and I can see nothing else will."

She made the disgusted face again. "Just don't start thinking that just because I said blonde won't work means you can dye your hair any other color." With that, she pushed me down with my head in the sink, turned it on, and started scrubbing different creams and emulsions into my tresses of raven hair. I closed my eyes and wondered what Delly was going through in the other room.

All of a sudden, Harriet had pushed me out of the sink and was blow-drying my hair. She attacked it with a comb for a few minutes before my chair was twirled around to face the mirror. A light turned on, brightening the dim room, allowing me to survey my reflection.

I looked stunning. That might sound conceited, but I had learned long ago to view my face not as my own, instead as a friend's, so I could observe any flaws without feeling embarrassed for myself. And my hair was beautiful. I hadn't thought of what the expensive-sort of shampoos and hair creams could do for the top of my head. Although it was short, it was luscious; the hair I saw was no longer wispy and delicate, but thick and soft. I gazed at it, afraid to touch the locks.

Yet there were still imperfections. I leaned closer, fascinated. The stubborn lock of hair still refused to be brushed out of my eyes; when examined, my hair was still seriously unbalanced, there was a new cowlick on the back of my head that rejected all attempts to be combed out.

I loved it. Shampoodle was my new favorite place in the City.

"Thank you," I said, adoring the way it was still hopelessly spiky. The failures always emphasized the perfections, I had noticed; and I had learned to love the way my hair behaved, defective or not. "How much do I owe you?"

"Because you're new here, I make a one-time discount," she said, bustling around and putting combs and bottles away. "You only owe me one thousand, five hundred Bells." That wasn't so bad. "Do you want to charge it to your shopping card?"

"Uhh – no, thanks, I don't have one," I said, reaching into my purse and handing her what she needed. "Cash is fine."

Harriet nodded briskly and pulled me out of the room. Delly was sitting in another chair, a large brown dog standing over her wielding a pair of scissors. I stopped for a second to watch the procedure. He was clipping away at the heavier fur on top of her squirrel head, carving it expertly into a heart-shaped cut. Delly caught my eyes in the mirror, then rolled her own. "Glad to see you didn't go overboard and dye your hair after all," she remarked.

"She almost did," Harriet replied as I was hustled into a seat not far from Delly's chair to wait. I grinned as my hairdresser sped away to finish a style on the head of the very deer I had hoped to ambush. Possibly I would be able to corner her after Delly was finished, although I was reconsidering my plan at this point. It wouldn't be polite or very friendly to follow a deer around the City, then force friendship upon her.

Delly spun around for me to take in her new haircut. I clapped approvingly before she turned around and paid for her new style to the big brown dog standing behind her. "Shall we go?" she asked me, turning back.

"Where to?" I asked as we left the salon. It looked like the rain had stopped while we were inside, which was nice.

"There are only a few places in the City worth going to," Delly reminded me.

I grinned. "GracieGrace?" I inquired.

She confirmed my query with a nod.


	6. Chapter 6

**Obviously I didn't invent Labelle. But she's going to be in a few more chapters (SPOILERS!) so I might as well get the copyright issues out of the way right now. ****I don't own Labelle**** and yada yada yada. Enjoy the chapter.**

**Oh, yeah, and Carolyn is my own creation. Once again, there may be another character called Carolyn in the game, but this one's all mine.**

Delly showed me to the steps of GracieGrace. The building wasn't hard to find. It was the most posh, most glamorous doorway in the whole City; I actually gasped aloud when I spotted the meticulously polished cobblestone around the entrance. Delly rolled her eyes under her freshly cut hair. "Come on," she told me. "Labelle's the best host you'll find anywhere. There's no reason to be nervous."

She tugged me into the threshold. The doors slid open automatically and the two of us trooped in, both of us suddenly uncertain and feeling unkempt and common compared to the décor of the world of fashion surrounding us.

A gorgeous couch sat in the corner, heavy plush pastel fabric matching the skillfully trimmed cushions that piled up on the edge. A price tag proclaimed the wraithlike material of an expertly cut thigh-high white dress to be twenty-five thousand Bells. A tilted hat with a garland of feathers stood on the head of a mannequin wearing a velvet shrug in green. Even the fabric of the gossamer veil on a black thick-brimmed hat was seven thousand Bells.

Soft music played in the background. A display behind reinforced glass held matching blue and green swirled fabric in a hat and floor-length dress. Delly and I had wordlessly, instinctively latched onto each other, each of us unexpectedly aware of how bedraggled and clumsily dressed we were. We couldn't possibly deserve to be in this highborn palace.

I turned to run, devastated and insecure. The image of myself in the mirror was now laughable. True beauty couldn't conceivably exist near me for any length of time without becoming ugly and frail; I was frightened to enter any farther into the store lest that become its fate as well.

Delly was a bit more self-confident. "Come on, Aurie," she told me, tugging on my arm. "Let's go look at that pretty dress over there." She pointed to a gorgeous blue dress under a long midnight-black cape draped around the shoulders and swirling around the soft dark-blue bust. I flinched away, horrified that I was to stand next to anything so gorgeous. It would be like comparing a mouse to the splendor of a peacock, I confided later.

"Would you ladies like to try something else on?" A voice of a girl about our age drifted over the racks of clothes. Delly and I glanced at each other and peered around a wrapped red dress on a posed mannequin to see what was going on.

"No, thanks," said a tall, thin dog with three dresses hung over her arm. "We've got all we need." She was addressing an attractive hedgehog wearing an elegant black shirt and feminine tie. "But we don't have the cash right now to buy all this – could you charge it to my shopping card? The code's 4-1-9-1."

"Certainly," said the hedgehog, taking the proffered card. A lanky elephant was trying on a pair of long leather boots next to her, and standing next to a long elegantly carved end table was a petite black cat. They were evidently the "ladies" the hedgehog had referred to.

All three of the women thanked the hedgehog upon receiving their card and trooped out of the lavish castle of GracieGrace. I suddenly realized what made them so peculiar to me: they all belonged here. Perhaps they were regular customers of posh boutiques such as this, possibly they came from a town with many high-class stores. I didn't know. And as I couldn't be nearly fashionable enough to talk to them, I wouldn't know anytime soon.

"Can I help you ladies?" The hedgehog appeared in front of us, a slight smile playing around her lips. I read on her name tag that her name was "Labelle."

Delly spoke up. "We're just looking, thanks."

"Okay. Feel free to try on anything you like."

My breath caught. I was still looking at the luxurious blue dress with the darker-blue bust, the black velvet cape (which I realized now was actually a long leather coat) and the white-trimmed high heels that poked out from under the dress's hem. I hadn't thought I could actually try that on… but I reminded myself I shouldn't get too attached, as I wouldn't be able to afford it in a million years.

Labelle noticed my studying. "This coat would go lovely with your hair," she told me, hooking the dress off the rack. I allowed one finger to reach out, as if in a dream, to stroke the fabric of the coat. "Would you like to try it on?"

I turned for a second and noticed involuntarily that Labelle's eyes were a deep purple; almost black. I focused on her face. "Um, no thanks." But as she smiled and pulled the dress away, I couldn't help letting loose a small whimper.

Delly snorted. "Come on, Aurie, let's go check out the furniture." She appeared to have gotten over the first wave of insecurity that pervaded the store: obviously every time she came to the City she visited GracieGrace. She towed me farther into the store, picking up different shoes and hats and scrutinizing them. "Excellent as always, Labelle. When do you get the time to make these?" For some reason, I felt a stab of jealousy. I dismissed it immediately. Delly could compliment whosever shoes she wanted.

Labelle hurried over. "I usually order them from Gracie when we sell out," she said.

"Yeah, but this was made by you. See? The L in a triangle – your special logo. Right here, in the bottom of the heel."

I was surprised. Delly knew this store better than I expected.

Labelle blushed a little, and for some reason a wave of fury blossomed in my heart towards my friend. I probed at it disconcertedly. The odd feeling dispersed as I examined a green tunic with a leaf pattern around the collar. Just out of curiosity, I said, "How much is this?"

"Ohh, that number is seventeen thousand Bells. But," she continued as my eyes steadily widened, "it's a small price to pay for quality. Would you like it? The fabric around the hem is velvet." I touched the soft green material at the edge of the blouse and confirmed her appraisal. I was unwilling to pay seventeen thousand Bells when I still hadn't paid off my little house, but maybe I could try it on just to test out the softness of the fabric.

"Can I try this on?" I asked Labelle, holding up the blouse.

She nodded in assentation. "There's a dressing room in the back. Would you like help buttoning up the back? The fastenings are a little fiddly…"

"I'll do it," said Delly, hanging up the pair of slacks she had been weighing and flashing me a grin. We walked together into the dressing room Labelle had pointed out. As soon as the door had slid closed, I started to pull off my top.

"Are you sure you want to try something on that neither of us could ever afford without selling all our belongings?" my friend asked cagily as I tried to break her grip on the green tunic. "Because you might get attached."

"I've considered that, yeah. Are you going to let go of it or not?"

She surrendered the shirt which was, in all fairness, completely deserving of attempts to manipulate prospective owners into one's own possession. I slipped the shirt over my head and Delly buttoned it up at the back. I turned around, searching for a mirror.

"Wow," whistled Labelle's voice from outside. My cheeks reddened a little; I hadn't noticed that she had entered while I was undressing. "Oh, wow, Aurie, you look incredible in that! It matches your eyes perfectly."

It was a little embarrassing, but my bottle-green eyes and black hair always reminded people of the Harry Potter series. "How did you know what my name was?"

She averted her eyes, looking at the floor. "Sorry. I heard your friend say your name as you two came in. Never mind, would you like to see a mirror? I've got a big floor-length one in the main room for viewing prom and wedding dresses."

Delly agreed before I could. "She deserves to see how she looks."

We followed her out with uncomfortable shimmying on my part; the shirt didn't fit me as well as I had hoped, although it was soft and comfortable around the shoulders and waist. I didn't have much of a bust, so the fabric around my chest hung loosely, but I found that the problem was unnoticeable when standing still in front of a mirror.

I didn't like it that much, even though Labelle complimented me highly. It was nice, I just wasn't a big fan of wearing loud, gaudy outfits on everyday occasions; maybe if the green was forest green or jade-green I would take more interest. Labelle looked a little subdued as she hung up the shirt after I had changed, and I saw her mouthing calculations and taking measurements with her hands on the green top as we left.

"So? How'd you like her?"

I rolled my eyes. We had gotten back on the bus after getting a quick shoe shine and a soda. I was still sipping mine, making it last, although Delly had downed her whole cup just before the bus arrived. "I told you, Labelle seems really nice."

"You know that she met your sister a few times?"

I nodded, taking another sip. "Holly gets around."

"More than that. Did you know that Labelle's gay?"

My eyes widened a little. "You're kidding?" Then I made the connection. "Oh, yeah, Holly called Mom a few months ago to come out. The next call that was made on that telephone was to 911. So until they brought Mom around with smelling salts, I didn't hear the news. They're seriously together?"

"Labelle and Holly? No, unfortunately not. They broke up a while ago. It wasn't a rough separation though; they both sort of got tired with each other and eventually fell apart. They met originally because they were both designers."

I melodramatically buried my face in my hands. "This just sucks, you know way more about my sister than I do."

Delly just laughed and changed the subject. "Look over there – it's our friend," she said, lowering her voice and pointing across the bus aisle.

I looked around. The mysterious deer was fidgeting on the seats across from us, glancing every so often out the window. Automatically, I leaned over and tapped her once on the shoulder. She jumped and looked around. The inner me panicked as the cool me handled the situation easily. "Hey, what's your name? I've been seeing you around the City, and I wondered what town you live in. You look really familiar." She did look oddly familiar; as I've said, it was like she was the personification of all my childhood friends.

"C-Carolyn," she stuttered.

I was a little surprised. "Carolyn King? From Springspoon?" Springspoon City was the town I grew up in before my family moved to where they currently lived. A little deer named Carrie King was my best friend from preschool to second grade, where she bonded with other girls who were more popular. Carrie was the star, the spotlight of second grade. I wondered how she'd become so shy in her adulthood.

She nodded. "Y-You're Aurora, aren't you?" When I confirmed with a nod, she finally smiled. "I don't remember much when we were young, but you were my f-friend in primary school, weren't you? You still h-have the same hair that you did when you were six."

"You couldn't pronounce my name, so I went by Rory," I chimed in.

"You wanted to be one of Santa's reindeer when you grew up," she replied.

I was surprised again. "Did I? I don't remember that…"

"Oh, yes. You kept talking about how you were going to marry Comet when you got to the North Pole. We made maps together of the 'perilous winding road that leads to Santa's workshop.' I think I still have those maps somewhere." I was amazed at her stutter, which had disappeared as soon as she really began talking.

Delly was becoming impatient. When she cleared her throat, I recalled that a thing called 'manners' existed. "Oh, right. Carrie, this is –"

"S-sorry, but I go by Carolyn now," she mumbled, shy again.

"Sorry. Del, this is Carolyn, and Carolyn, this is Delly," I said, accidentally pointing at the opposite friend. Delly laughed.

"Hi," she said in a friendly tone.

"H-hi," Carolyn faltered.

"Where do you live, Carolyn?" I asked again, wondering if we could meet up in the City sometime for a trek through GracieGrace. Carolyn averted her eyes.

Her voice was tremulous when she said, "I don't live anywhere." She raised her eyes to meet mine. "I-I'm homeless."


	7. Chapter 7

What Carolyn hadn't told us is that she was, on top of being homeless, also a fugitive. I unfortunately discovered this when I was lying on the floor of my attic that night ("Aurora, it's okay, it's your house, you take the bed" "Nonsense, you're a guest"). Abruptly, as I listened to the soft murmur of Carolyn's breath, there was a distant siren and a knock at my door.

Carolyn's grip stiffened on mine when I made to get up. "Don't answer that," she breathed. "Those are police dogs."

I looked at her incredulously through the dusty darkness of the attic. "Don't answer the police? What am I, a criminal?" She suddenly looked as though she was going to cry, and I hurried to console her. "Hey, it's okay. I'm sure there are no criminals around here. Just give me a second to see what this is about." Before she could stop me again, I clambered out of my makeshift bed and scampered down the stairs, missing a step.

"Miss," the policeman greeted me, holding up a badge. He was a sleek black dog with a stripe of white up his muzzle, and Delly would have said he was "a cutie." I wondered why it didn't bother me more that men like that never seemed interested in me. "Sorry to bother you, but would you mind a quick interrogation?"

"About what?"

"An escaped felon. They've been spotted in this area very recently. Have you seen anybody suspicious around here?"

"No, no one suspicious. Sorry."

"That's all right." He held out a poster. "But take this. If you see anyone matching this description and appearance, just give us a call." He nodded to me and gave me a smile before striding away into the darkness. I closed the door, yawned, and went into my kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee: it was four o' clock in the morning, too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep. I might as well get started prematurely.

I sleepily glanced at the poster and spilled the half-full cup of coffee all over myself in shock. Carolyn ran downstairs at the sound of my muffled swearing, but it wasn't because the boiling liquid had seeped into my shirt: it was because the face on the wanted poster was the same face of the poor, terrified girl I had agreed to harbor the night before.

"Tell. Me. Everything."

She was trying to wrestle me away from the phone. "Okay! Okay, I swear I will, just stop trying to call the police! Just – just sit down, and I'll tell you everything you need to know."

I slowly dropped my arm, then snatched up the phone. "Stop it," I said to her when she let out a wordless cry and tried to tackle me. "I'm calling Del." The phone rang once, twice, finally three times. There was a click and Delly's voice came through the speaker.

"What the hell are you calling me for at this untimely hour? It's four-effing-o'-clock in the morning, Aurora Swann. This had better be good."

Carolyn's eyes were focused raptly on me. "Oh, it is. Can you get over to my house in less than ten minutes? It's an emergency." I waited, my fingers crossed under my coffee-soaked shirt. I would rather not face this alone.

I could almost hear her eyes rolling. "Oh, I'm sure it is. Just like my friend Rachel's midnight hangnail was an emergency. It was raining that day and there was tons of mud everywhere, and Rachel lived ten miles out and I didn't have a car."

"Please?"

"Ugh. Fine. I'm up, anyway."

It took only a few minutes for her to arrive, but those few minutes were fraught with my fingers drumming a tense rhythm on the numbers 911 on the telephone, and Carolyn shivering uncontrollably and crossing and uncrossing her legs. Delly entered, then let out a gasp. Carolyn dove under the table.

"Oh, God! You spilled coffee all over yourself, Aurie! What a disaster." She rolled her eyes again and threw herself into a chair. Carolyn slowly emerged from her hiding place.

"Careful," I warned. "One of those chairs broke the day after I got here, and I had to secure it with wood glue. It's not safe but I can never remember which chair it is. Be gentle." I lowered myself into the chair next to Delly, and gestured to Carolyn to sit down in front of us, keeping my gaze fixed on her the whole time.

"Carrie," I said politely, purposefully using her childhood nickname. "Why don't you tell us all about yourself, and why you've earned the nickname" – I checked the bottom of the poster – "'The Shadow.'"

Delly gasped again, but this time it was genuine. _"She's_ that –"

"Hush. Carolyn?"

She looked agonized. "I-I'm sorry. I n-never m-meant to."

"Tell us."

Carolyn was ten years old when it started. She began to steal things. Her father's business was in decline and her mother had died from some sort of disease when she was only seven, which I remembered broken images of. And she was shopping for her father and herself when she saw a beautiful plastic necklace that she wanted really, really badly. But she knew her father would never be able to afford it, so after mulling it over for a long time – she really wanted the necklace – her little hand shot out and she ripped the tag off the item. The plastic toy went into her pocket and, her heart pounding, she went to the counter and paid for the other groceries.

The next day, she did it again. This time with a pair of socks, shoved into her boot along with another plastic toy. Soon she began to realize her father was really poor, and they were going to starve if she didn't do something, so she began to steal more and more, and much more helpfully. A half-gallon of milk was hidden in a bag under a pair of pants. A packaged slice of beef was shoved down the front of her shirt. Soon, she fell in with the wrong crowd, drawn to her by her prowess at shoplifting. They paid her to steal things for them, using her, caring nothing more for her than a new toy.

When that new toy became old and boring, they sent her on a mission that led straight to juvenile hall for her – they made her steal out of a GracieGrace store in Springspoon. She only took a pair of sunglasses, but even that was worth at least seven thousand Bells. In juvie, she fell in with the wrong crowd _again – _this time with a bunch of punk girls who thought it would be fun to try to break out of prison. They forced her to steal the keys. She did so, having not learned yet that she was worth anything other than being made to thieve. She stayed as a fugitive with the girls for a while before their daring got too bold.

One of the girls slept with a drunk human man who turned out to be a murderer in the morning. He threatened two of the girls with a knife and if Carolyn hadn't acted quickly, her unrelated sisters would have been slain. The petite deer braced her feet and shoved him out the window, but her friends turned traitor and accused Carolyn of killing him when the body was found in the morning. Carolyn grew up with a mission: to prove her innocence and to find the only decent girl in the group other than her, a little red fox named Alice. She had heard her juvenile friends whispering the day before the man tried to kill them that they were planning to do away with Alice. However, she couldn't help Alice escape from the traitorous murder attempt while in prison, so one night she had broken out.

Police couldn't find records of her name except for Carrie, so they called her "The Shadow" when they didn't call her Carrie King. It explained her wish to name herself by her full name, Carolyn. It did not explain why Carolyn had gone to a public place – the hairdresser and the Marquee in the City – so I asked her.

"Oh, that was because Harriet's assistant, Hanna, thought she knew a fox named Alice. While she got ready for our appointment, I had to go somewhere that no one's attention would be focused on me, so I went to a dark place where all anyone saw was the back of my head."

"Didn't work out for you that well, did it?" Delly smirked.

Carolyn dropped her gaze and muttered something inaudible. I noticed her stutter had returned, and I shot Delly a glare before continuing.

"Did you find Alice, though?"

"N-no, Alice is a r-really common name, and t-the fox H-Hanna thought she knew turned out t-to be a black wolf. Alice is a red f-fox."

I nodded. "So basically, you're searching for Alice and hoping that these girls haven't murdered her yet, but the cops are after you because they think you offed a guy when it was totally justified by self-defense?"

"T-that's about it, yeah."

It was five o' clock in the morning. Delly and I had both gone through two cups of coffee, and offered some to Carolyn three times, and I'd changed my shirt once. The stained one lay under my bed, forgotten. Even Delly had nothing more to say.

"We'll help you," I decided impulsively. Delly agreed with three quick nods. "You can stay in my house for now, and we'll switch you over to Delly's house in a few days. Do you want some breakfast?"

Carolyn blinked. "Oh, no," she said. "You don't have to help me. Isn't harboring a fugitive illegal?" She was curled up on her chair, still dressed in yesterday's clothes. She looked fairly forlorn and her hair was mussed. I snorted, and Delly made another audible eye roll from the fridge where she was examining my food storage.

"Come on, Carrie," I said, and she flinched again. "Sorry – Carolyn. You think I'm going to let my old childhood friend wander off into the world of feds wrongfully arresting you and hung-over murderers and traitor fake-friend girls? Just because of one law? Please." I punctuated myself with another sip of coffee, watching her impassively.

"And we'll help you look for Alice, wherever she is," put in Delly, still investigating the contents of my fridge. "Hey, Aurie, where do you keep your eggs?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Thank you so much for the kind review, SoulPieces! Enjoy the chapter.**

The first few weeks went well. I had forgotten what having a girl my age around all the time felt like (Holly had always been gone on business trips). I did most of the shopping and Carolyn, who had an eye for interior design, showed me where to put the furnishings I returned from Tom Nook's with. Every time the cops came around, as the reports of sightings of "The Shadow" were still very recent, I would signal to Carolyn to hide and I'd go to answer the door. In this way, no one suspected me.

Every few days, at infrequent dates so no one would find a pattern, Carolyn would sneak out of my house and steal over to Delly's. We did this more often during lunch hour than during midnight, as the cops expected Carolyn to move at night. At lunch hour, everyone was inside, and there weren't many houses between Delly's and mine.

In my spare time, when I wasn't finding new ways to make money for myself, I searched for Alice on the town library's free Internet access. Carolyn was right: Alice _was_ a really common name, and there were a lot of red foxes. It was even harder to locate a gang member, too. Carolyn had no idea where Alice and the other girls might be right now. They certainly weren't in Springspoon, which I discovered in shock had been torn down years ago.

I was a little nervous, doing something this illegal, but I felt that Carolyn deserved to have help after so long being poor and starving and betrayed. So I continued working, searching for the name "Alice Graham", the name Carolyn had confirmed her friend went by. One night I thought I had a lead – a little red fox named Alexandria Graham who lived in my hometown – (I wasn't sure if Alice was short for Alexandria), and I worked late into the night before being crushed and disappointed when I discovered a picture of Alexandria on the computer and compared it with the little dirty picture of Alice that Carolyn had saved. They were very much not the same person, and I headed back to my house from the library, discouraged.

Carolyn was staying at Delly's house that night. I slumped into bed, falling asleep almost immediately, but it felt like only a few minutes later when my phone rang. I snatched it up angrily and put it to my ear.

"Aurora?"

The number was unfamiliar. "Yeah? Who is this?"

"It's Labelle." My heart sped up. "Delly was in GracieGrace the other day and I told her to give you a message and to call me… she didn't, did she?"

"Um… if she did, I don't remember it."

"That's okay, I found your number in the phone book." It was five o' clock in the morning. It seemed that getting up early was to become a tradition for me. As if reading my mind, she added, "I'm sorry it's so early, but I spent all last night trying to figure out measurements, and I finally finished my project!" It was obvious she'd been bursting to say this.

After a while I said "Um… good for you?" and cringed inside. I really needed more sleep. I wasn't sounding friendly at all.

Luckily, Labelle didn't seem fazed. "Oh, she really didn't tell you, huh? Well, remember that green top you tried on a few weeks ago? Well, I think it would look even prettier on you if I made it forest green and adjusted the length and measurements a little… It gets kind of tedious out here, watching all sorts of snooty upper-middle-class shopping fanatics come in here and act like they know everything there is to know about fashion. Don't get offended – I don't mean you – God, I really am taking up conversation, aren't I. Sorry…" She laughed.

"That's fine. I think it's cu- uh, interesting." My face flamed red and I wondered what the hell had made me slip like that. I felt like I needed to steer the conversation away from my almost pronunciation of the word _cute,_ so I hurried on: "Before I moved here, my friends all babbled, but I liked it. I'm not a great conversationalist, so I enjoy talking to people who are."

An awkward silence fell and I belatedly ran back over what I'd said, trying to find out if I'd offended her, before I realized she was speaking. _What did she say? _ "Yeah, so, uh, I tend to make projects out of people just for something to do. I thought the green shirt would be an excellent project and you were just the one to do it for. I, um, I finished it just last night. Can you come over to the City and try it on?"

"Okay," I told her, and inwardly panicked. When? Where? Should I just go into GracieGrace and ask her for the shirt? What if she was talking to somebody? If I lingered in the store, it would seem like I was impatient… I told myself there was no reason to panic, and realized she was waiting for me to say something. "When should I come over?"

"I should be free at ten o' clock, if you can make it," said Labelle.

"Right. Okay. Ten," I babbled. _Why am I acting like such an idiot? It's just a girl who wants me to try on some clothes. I did that all the time back home._ "See you then."

She hung up and I slumped back into my pillows, bemused and nervous.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank y'all for waiting! Sorry this is kind of late! Also, there's some minor language in this chapter, but you might want to read it anyway because it's got some important information for the next ark. (It's kind of obvious now who's going to turn out to be the "Romance" in this story now, huh? Not to Aurora, at least. She's**** quite convinced that she's straight.)**

"Hey. Delly?"

It was forty minutes before ten o' clock. I had spent the morning agonizing over my hair and my outfit, completely unable to explain to myself why. At the last minute before heading to the bus stop, I realized my friend had no idea I was leaving. It was true that she made minor excursions to the City alone, but this was my first visit without being accompanied by a friend and I needed to let her know where to look for me if I didn't come back. I was speaking to her on the phone, so luckily she didn't see my shattered nerves and sweaty palms.

"Yeah? What?"

"I'm going to the City."

"Ooh!" She was more perceptive than I thought. "You're meeting someone, aren't you?"

"Kind of," I admitted. "But –"

"Who is he? Never mind. You need to tell me all about it when you get home."

"Um…" I began, trying to tell her what it really was, but it was too late. Delly had hung up. I let out a sigh and scrambled down the stairs from my attic, out of the house, hastening toward the bus stop.

The bus ride was filled with the driver prattling on and on about himself while I stared out the window. I wished I'd invited Delly so I had someone to talk to. I had only just thought that when the bus driver glanced out his own window and said, "Oh, little lady, looks like we're here at the City. Don't let yer man bother yeh too much!" Incredible. It seemed everyone thought that just because I was going to the City alone, I was going to meet a boy. I hopped off the bus without making eye contact with the driver.

Suddenly realizing that I was ten minutes early, I froze in the middle of my stride towards GracieGrace. What could I do to kill ten minutes? If I went in there now, she'd think I was overly eager. If I stayed out too long and was late, she might get mad. I deliberated for a while. Finally, telling myself I was being ridiculous, I walked boldly up to the doors of GracieGrace and waited. The automatic doors didn't slide open.

I peered into the glass to see a sign: HOURS – 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Oh, lovely. I was going to have to wait whether I wanted to or not. Heaving an exaggerated sigh, I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorway. Just as I thought the famous words ("It can't get any worse"), it predictably started to rain.

It was twenty minutes before Labelle opened the doors, longer than I expected. The crowd of cross-looking fashion jockeys were snappy and soaked and streamed into GracieGrace, muttering darkly: "What time d'you call this?"

"Is that stuck-up bitch prissy enough to keep us waiting for ten whole minutes?"

I battled my way through the small mob of dripping people who were complaining about their lack of jackets – _if you're so angry about not wearing a jacket, why didn't you bring one? It's not her fault – _until I found the "her" in question. _She_ was standing beside the front desk, her eyes red and looking harassed.

I dropped my voice to a whisper and stood next to her. "Are you okay?"

"No," she hissed back, wiping her eyes. "I am not okay. Sorry, just give me a sec –" Labelle turned away from me, and I realized she was crying and obviously didn't want me to see. The crowd, still wringing out their clothes, broke into a mutter.

I stepped forward, my heart pounding. "Hey," I said loudly, quieting the crowd. All eyes focused on me. I took a deep breath. "There's something I don't understand," I said, making eye contact with the front row. "The weather isn't Labelle's fault. The fact that you didn't wear jackets isn't Labelle's fault. The lack of your preparation can't be blamed on her. And as for the late opening – didn't you see the notice outside?" There had been no notice, but I was relying on the fact that angry mobs tend to think with one brain: if I could convince one, hopefully I'd convince them all. "I'm sure it said that opening time would be a little delayed today. Now pull yourselves together, stop dripping on the expensive furniture unless you feel like paying for it, and do what you came to do, which I hope was to not accuse shopkeepers of influencing the weather." I stopped for a second to let that sink in, and to my ultimate relief, the crowd hung its collective head in shame and began to disperse.

"You should be a lawyer," said Labelle quietly to me with a watery smile.

I glanced at her. "What?" I said, lowering my voice too. "Help blameworthy murderers and rapists stay out of prison while innocent ones are convicted?" I wasn't a big fan of so-called upholders of the law after the whole deal with Carolyn.

"No," she said. "I meant your skill of charisma."

I was at a loss for words. She smiled at me again. "Thank you. I'm sorry about that. A – a lot of stuff happened right after I called you. Now, would you like to try on my project blouse? I can't help you get it on, there are so many patrons today – but it's in the back room. The _employees only _door, next to the dressing rooms." She went off to help a customer, leaving me by the front desk, dumbfounded.

The Employees Only room was a lot less impressive than I expected. It was a white-walled room with dark green carpeting and racks and racks of spare clothes. There was also an emergency bathroom and a mop by the side of the restroom door. I shut the Employees Only door slowly behind me and searched for the shirt Labelle had told me about over the phone. Strangely, it didn't stand out to me like all of the sequined and glittery pink dresses, although the tone of her voice had suggested it was a work of spectacular art.

I finally pulled it out from behind a quirky blue shirt with a pattern of silver doves around the collar. It was nothing more than a simple dark green shirt and I looked at it for a second, confused. It was regular fabric – nothing, no sequins, no velvet, no silk. Not even buttons down the back. But I tried it on anyway, then felt a change come over me. Deliberately, I turned to face the big mirror in the Employees Only room.

For a second it looked like any normal shirt. And then it happened.

My eyelashes were enhanced and lengthened by the black rimming on the hem and collar and sleeve ends. My bottle-green eyes glowed under the dark line of my eyebrows. My short black hair, aided by the bottles of whatever-it-was that Harriet had used on my hair (long-lasting, apparently), was longer than it looked like it had been and shaped my face perfectly. For a second, I thought about what a shoulder-length, even cut would do for me. And then I lowered my gaze a little.

Somehow the shirt was affecting my jeans. They fit my hips and hugged my legs in the most perfect way. The top itself added to what bust I had and fit perfectly in all other places, complementing my eye color flawlessly. The long sleeves snuggled my elbows and softened their points. The haircut at Shampoodle had used my imperfections to balance perfection. This… this genius _was _perfection. I was the definition of perfection.

Incredibly, I found that I wished my hair was longer.

I was just about to leave the Employees Only room when Labelle pushed on the door and entered. She looked hassled again and I found myself wondering concernedly what was wrong, apart from the overwhelming throng of customers out in the main room, before she stopped in her tracks and her mouth formed an O.

"Oh," she said, her deep-purple eyes widening. She came over to me tentatively, as if rushing over would break the spell. "Oh, Aurora." The hedgehog stopped again, her mouth open.

For some reason, a blush spread over my face. Then the image of Carolyn, broken and desolate, running from the law and searching for a friend she didn't even know was still alive, filled my mind's eye. I felt ashamed of myself for shallowly worrying and fussing over my reflection. Labelle noticed the change in room temperature.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I shook my head, wordlessly staring at my mirror image. Is this who I was? I remembered the half hour I had spent in my house agonizing over what to wear. That couldn't be me. There had to be something wrong with me. I was despicable.

I was shallow and horrible and just as bad as the so-called "fashionistas" that waited outside GracieGrace every morning for it to open. Carolyn was running for her life and risking everything for her friend. What had I done? Even Delly had been planning to take a trip all the way to my hometown just to check out Alexandria Graham, even though I was sure she wasn't Alice. What had I ever done?

What finally saved me was, ironically, my reflection. I'd said before that I viewed my reflection as a friend's, not as my own, knowing that it would be therefore easier to critique and appraise. I had a glimpse of the girl in the mirror looking completely devastated, and it stopped me from being so; I instinctively moved to comfort her before I remembered she was me. By that time I'd gotten so confused that the tears threatening to brim over had quelled.

"Are you okay?" Labelle had taken another step towards me, her forehead furrowed. "I didn't think it was _that_ bad…"

I glanced at her. "What?"

"The shirt. See, I'm horrible at stitching – I usually send sell items away to a small shop, in your town actually, to get the stitching done; if they're my sell items and not Gracie's – but this time I thought I ought not to trouble them because this wasn't a sell item. So I did the stitching myself and I know I screwed up in a few places and I'm totally babbling again, aren't I." She turned her head away, looking so exasperated with herself that I couldn't help suppressing a grin.

"It wasn't you," I sighed. "Probably just a bad case of PMS, enhanced by the rain."

"I understand," she agreed, walking around me and looking from all sides to make sure her measurements had been accurate. "I've always been sensitive to the weather around my time of the month." She stood back. "There. Now, before you start insisting on me: you don't have to pay anything for it. I want you to keep the shirt. For free."

"I can't do that!" There was no way in hell I could afford the green shirt, but I wasn't going to just take it. I couldn't just _take_ a GracieGrace brand shirt.

Labelle sighed and held her paw up. "No. This isn't a sell item; I made it on my own time, and I didn't expect any payment."

"I have to do something, otherwise I'll feel horribly indebted to you," I pouted.

"How about this? I am asking you to take it. Look on this as a favor. I made the shirt for you, now you're repaying a favor to me, which is: I want you to keep it. It's like an experiment. If all else fails, tell yourself that I want to see how well my stitching holds up."

"Which you could easily do just by making a shirt for yourself."

She glared at me. "Listen, Aurora." A shiver twinkled around the nape of my neck. I hadn't noticed before, but she had a slight accent that I couldn't quite identify. "I must have spent hours breaking my ass on the uncomfortable chair next to my workbench, will you just bear the fruits of my labors and be proud of it?"

We both kept a straight face for two seconds and then couldn't hold back our giggles. I had never been able to say the phrase "fruits of my labors" without cracking up – something about that phrase just killed me.

Labelle seemed to be one with the mood shifts today, I noticed. She'd seemed fine when she called at five o' clock in the morning, and then she was basically sobbing when I arrived at the City, and now we were standing in an Employees Only room, laughing together. But then again, I'd been in danger of crying just five minutes ago, too. It did indeed seem like PMS to me, but there was something more going on with Labelle; I thought of her tearstained face in the lobby. I was too scared to ask her what was going on.

"Fine, fine, I'll take the shirt. On one condition…"

Her dark-violet eyes widened. "I spent weeks working on that shirt and you have the nerve to ask for _more?"_

I nodded. "It's a way for me to get you to accept payment." I ignored her annoyed exhalation. The words came out of my mouth unbidden. "Let me buy you dinner."


	10. Chapter 10

**This one's going to be a short one. I promise that in the next chapter things will stop being all angst-y and awkward. I've never liked putting characters in situations where everything they say turns out embarrassing, so don't worry, I'll keep the random awkward moments to a minimum.**

A second later, I remembered that Labelle was a lesbian and therefore might take that differently than I intended. I bit my lip hard.

"Aurora," she breathed. "You don't have to do that. You – you saved my butt out there just now with the whole big speech about a nonexistent notification and how I don't control the weather." She took a small step forward. "You don't have to feel like you owe me anything," she added, rocking back and forth on her heels.

My stupid traitorous mouth. I ran back over my words, searching for a way I could fix what I had just broken. "Come on. It would be fun." That wasn't at all what I had intended! Inside, I panicked. "But we really shouldn't talk about that right now," I hastened. "There're tons of customers out there, and I'm keeping you from work. Let's talk about a d- about dinner later, okay?" I had almost let slip the word _date,_ and I could have just stabbed myself. Even I wasn't sure whether I was accidentally hitting on her or not, and I hoped it was the latter. At least, I hoped Labelle thought it was the latter.

Relief flowed through me when she nodded affably and said, "All right. I'll call you when I've got some free time, okay?" But my relief didn't last long. Awkwardness filled the room and I could tell we were both dying to bolt. I willed the earth to suck me underground, my heart pounding. (Of course, the earth never does that when you want it to.)

To be honest, I don't remember how I escaped. I know I left wearing the green shirt and I think the one I'd arrived in was lying under the racks of clothing somewhere, but of course I never went back to get it. I arrived at Falcon, shamefaced and full of consternation.

"Oh, my God, Aurie!" Delly was bouncing up and down on her heels in front of my house. I had completely forgotten that I was wearing the green shirt and how it made me look. She gazed blatantly at my figure, dumbfounded. "Why didn't you tell me you'd been saving up for a GracieGrace outfit?" Then she recognized it. "Oh…"

"Yeah, _oh._ It's the shirt that you were supposed to tell me Labelle –" her name sent a shot of dread through me that I really didn't like – "was making."

"Whatever! Tell me what happened!" Delly said breathlessly.

"What do you mean?"

"What happened? You were meeting a boy, right?"

"No."

"You said you were meeting someone! C'mon, what happened?"

"No."

"Aww, come ON, Aurie, I haven't had good gossip in forever."

All I wanted to do was go inside, lie on the couch, and reflect on my stupidity. But Delly was being annoying and preventing me from my desired end. So I did something I'm not too proud of. (I did a lot of things that day I'm not proud of, but this was to my best friend.)

I shut the door in her face and locked it.

I regretted it instantly, but I went ahead and moped on the couch. It was afternoon before I realized that I'd been rubbing circles with my fingers on the beautiful green fabric of my shirt, and it was almost evening before I finally told myself that moping about something stupid that I'd done wasn't going to solve anything. I was pretty shocked at myself, actually; I had never been one to dwell on mistakes. Before, I had always tried to correct them before they got the better of me.

Mistake, 1, Aurora, 0.

I had had a roller-coaster of a day, I told myself, trying to justify my feelings. I had been disappointed and frustrated when I went to sleep, and then I was woken up really early and spent most of the morning fretting. Next, I had had to stand up for myself and a friend long enough for her to pull herself together, and then I had been almost crushed by lack of self-esteem later on for the fretting, I'd said some stupid things, and now I was just sitting around moping about everything that had gone on.

I pulled my bed to pieces that night, but when I woke up, I had learned a very valuable lesson: Never go to sleep on an empty stomach!


	11. Chapter 11

**Yay! Another part in! Fugitives, runaways, a missing friend, a girl doubting her own sexuality - what could be better?**

**Enjoy the chapter.**

Two days after what will go down forever in history as "The Incident," in some history books; in others, "This One Time Aurora Acted Really Stupid"; and in others, "Hey, kids! Remember that time your Auntie Aurie accidentally asked Auntie Labelle out? No? Well, let's just recount it around the fire to the embarrassment of all"; Delly was still mad at me for my violent blowing off. Not when she was talking to me, or anything. I'd just see her glower at me from the corner of her eye when we were in the same room together.

Until she came running into my house with a picture in her hand – "Carolyn! Aurora! Come look, quick! I think I've found Alice!"

Carolyn was staying at my house at around this time. We both stood up from our serious discussion about balloons and whether they had souls and faced Delly. "What? Where?" I said, hurrying over to her.

"Look! Remember Alexandria Graham? I found files online after an hour of solid hacking on the library computers. She changed her first name a little and moved to your hometown, Aurie! And she's dyed her fur brown, that's why you thought they were two different people. This picture is one she had on her web site." She held out the picture and Carolyn grabbed for it like a starving man goes to meat. "It's definitely her. It has to be her."

"It is," Carolyn whispered, with no trace of stutter. "It's Alice."

"I don't know why she did all that – it looks like she escaped the gang, though. Come on! What are we waiting for?" Delly grabbed a coat and looked up, her squirrel eyes shining. "Let's grab the bus for Beryl!"*

"I can't go," I reminded her. "I ran away from home, remember? If my family sees me, or if anyone I know sees me, that's it. They'll force me to stay home and I'll have to run away all over again. And Carolyn's a fugitive. You're the only one who can really go, Del."

"No way," Carolyn said fiercely. A change had come over her since Delly had said she'd found Alice. "I'm going whether I'm illegal or not. So help me, Aurie and I will wear disguises."

It was actually fun, making the disguises. My hair was pretty recognizable from anywhere, so Carolyn helped me tuck it under a blue winter hat. Delly, who was good with makeup, fixed my face so I looked more tan and added dots so I looked like I was covered in acne. At the end of it, I pulled on the green shirt Labelle had made, as it made me look so unlike myself. Carolyn and Delly looked me over at the end of it.

"We should start a makeover company," chuckled Delly just as Carolyn agreed.

Carolyn was a deer, which was harder to hide. The police were searching for a female deer. She ended up dressing up as a young boy, in a thick brown sweater: she couldn't possibly pass for an older man; she was so _tiny._ Just as we were about to leave, all of us practically vibrating with excitement, my phone rang upstairs.

I looked at my friends and hastily hurried up. I saw from the top of the staircase that Carolyn and Delly were watching me and listening, probably thinking that a boy was calling me. I had no idea who it was as I snatched the phone up and breathlessly said "Hello?"

"Hi, Aurora, this is Labelle? You mentioned going out for dinner sometime, and I'm free tonight?" It came out as a question, and I wouldn't know until later that Labelle was currently cursing herself for sounding so hesitant.

"Oh," I said, glancing down at Delly and Carolyn. They were grinning like idiots. Great. If I said something stupid now, it wouldn't be only Labelle this time who would hear. "I am so sorry – I'm afraid I have to be somewhere this evening." Oh, yes. They thought a boy had called me. I nearly brought my hands to my face.

"Really?" She sounded unhappy. I rushed to reassure her.

"But maybe this Saturday?" Delly and Carolyn glanced at each other with smirks all over their faces. I really did bring one hand to my face this time.

"Sure," Labelle said, sounding relieved now. I swallowed. "Great. I think I'm free for Saturday, yeah."

"See you then." It came out in a rush. I pressed the end-call button hastily, then wondered if she thought I was overly eager to hang up. It didn't matter. Delly and Carolyn were still smirking as I came downstairs, detached.

"So, Aurie, who was that," Delly said in a sing-song voice.

I deliberated. It was better to let them know now, I thought, than wait until they got the wrong idea and thought I was secretly dating someone. Delly already thought so, I remembered, right before I shut the door in her face. "Labelle."

They stared at me, mouths open. Delly recovered first. _"'Maybe this Saturday?'" _she smirked. "'I'm afraid I have to be somewhere tonight?' Man, Aurie, I didn't know you followed the family trend."

I blushed horribly as I remembered that my sister was gay. "I'm NOT GAY!" I yelled to the ceiling, startling a spider. "We just agreed to meet up… for… dinner," I ended hesitantly.

"Sounds like a date to me," Carolyn leered. "Well, Aurie, you can meet up with your _girlfriend_ later. Let's go now and find Alice."

***I had originally only called Aurora's home "my hometown" or "Aurie's hometown" because I wanted to pick out a really good name, and good names take time, and the story was already in production... I'm totally babbling just like Labelle has a tendency to do in this story, aren't I? Anyway. It's called ****_Beryl_**** now, after the awesome rare red beryl emerald.**

**Hopefully the next chapter will be in Labelle's POV so we can see her end of the conversation!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Labelle's POV. Well, no one's point of view, really - third person - but the subject this time is Labelle, not Aurora.**

"So what is the deal with this girl, anyway?"

Labelle was pretty openly gay. Gracie, her boss, visited sometimes, and every time she inquired about Labelle's social life. Labelle didn't mind. She knew her boss was only worried that the hedgehog would start skiving off work. "What girl?"

"You know – shirt girl."

Aurora was known as "shirt girl" now, ever since Labelle had told Gracie about the green shirt. "Really, Gracie. I'm sure she's straight. She'd never be interested in me."

"You never know until you try," smirked Gracie. "Seriously, Belle, just try _calling_ her. You don't have to say you're interested or anything, just talk to her for a sec."

"Why?" asked Labelle suspiciously. Whenever Gracie called her "Belle" she was usually plotting something. When it came to girls, Labelle wasn't fond of Gracie's plans.

This time Gracie was open with her. "I'll listen on the other line, Belle. Don't worry, I won't say anything. This way, I'll eavesdrop and decide if she's interested or not. And I promise I'll never tell anyone else about whatever I hear."

"Are you sure?" Labelle said doubtfully.

"'Course. You're like a sister to me, Labelle."

I won't bore you with the details of how long it took for Gracie to convince Labelle, but the point is that she did. Labelle, wiping her sweaty paws uneasily on her suit, dialed the number that she'd memorized since the morning of the green shirt.

It took a few rings for her to pick up. Gracie covered her mouth and listened intently as Labelle swallowed and listened to Aurora's greeting.

"Hello?"

Labelle gathered her nerve and shot Gracie a panicked glance. "Hi, Aurora, this is Labelle? You mentioned going out for dinner sometime, and I'm free tonight?" _Crap! Why do I have to sound like I'm so uncertain?_

"Oh," Aurora said. She sounded disappointed. _Was that my fault? Was she expecting another call? Oh, God, what if she was expecting me to be her boyfriend? Does she have a boyfriend? _Labelle stopped and tried to focus on what Aurora was saying. "I am so sorry – I'm afraid I have to be somewhere this evening." CRAP! She did have a boyfriend. Labelle crumpled to the ground silently as Gracie shot her a sympathetic look.

"Really?" Labelle managed, trying hard to make her voice sound steady.

"But maybe this Saturday?" _Did she really say that? _Labelle swallowed hard and shook the thoughts out of her head. Maybe Aurora only had to go somewhere else with her friends tonight instead of with a boyfriend. Her female friends. Hope rose in Labelle again at the thought of Aurora being eager to spend time with girls rather than boys, although jealousy at those same girls defeated most of the joy.

"Sure," Labelle said, trying not to sound overly eager. There was a pause, where Labelle tried in vain to think of things to fill it with. "Great. I think I'm free for Saturday, yeah," she said finally, clenching and unclenching her fist.

"See you then." Aurora disconnected. Labelle dropped the phone and fell all the way onto the ground in relief, Gracie chuckling softly at her awkwardness beside her.

"Oh, yes," came her employer's voice as Labelle lay on the floor, stunned and feeling like she'd just run a marathon. "She's head over heels for you, my girl."


	13. Chapter 13

**Back to Aurora. And thank you so much for the review, Virgofox28! I was actually planning on slacking off today and ignoring the little voice in my head that tells me to post, but then I read your comment and felt way better. :)))**

Beryl wasn't too far from Falcon. It took only one episode where we got lost before we arrived in my hometown (and mind you, I never would have gotten lost if Delly hadn't pointed out the wrong exit). I checked myself nervously in the bus window to make sure my disguise was still on, which it was, and motioned to Carolyn to reposition her hat.

"Remember," Delly instructed, "Aurora, you're Diana Comet, my cousin, and Carolyn –"

"I know, I'm D-Daniel Wartz, a friend of the f-family. We're v-visiting another friend together; that's why w-we're in town." Carolyn's stutter had returned, edgy and worried about being out in public. I kept forgetting she was disguised as a boy, and I almost asked her why her nom de plume was Daniel.

We were using the surname Comet for my pseudonym, referencing my early desires to be a reindeer back when Carolyn and I were friends. It piqued my curiosity. "By the way, Delly –"

"You're calling me Cordelia in public, remember," she warned. Delly had been a bit over the top about going incognito. I think it reminded all of us about playing spy mission when we were little, with walkie-talkies and disguises. I'm sure all of us did that when we were young.

"Sorry – _Cordelia. _You've never said what your last name is."

"It's Jade," she said, her eyes focused on the road in front of her. "Cordelia Jade, but I don't like it much because everybody messes up. Most people accidentally call me Jelly instead of Delly, and I'm allergic to most jellies."

Carolyn and I laughed.

"So are you going by Jade while we're here?"

"Yeah, sure." We'd figured out our aliases during the trip, but we hadn't considered one for Delly, who didn't need a disguise. Delly motioned us to keep walking as she checked the address we'd brought. "Er… it says thirty-one Elkridge avenue. That's just a little ways across town from here, but we can walk it, right?"

"Yeah. Carolyn, I mean, Daniel, keep an eye out for Elkridge avenue, okay?" Carolyn was walking by the side of the road that had the street signs. Delly was holding the address and I was searching the area for police cars. Carolyn nodded and continued walking beside us.

"So, Del – Cordelia, whatever. What do we do if it is Alice?"

"I suppose we let Carolyn talk to her and find out why she moved."

"Do you think Carolyn will leave?" The suspicion that Alice might be overly friendly and take Carolyn away had lurked in my mind for the entire trip.

"Shh – remember, her name's Daniel."

I put my face in my hands, preferring not to point out Delly's hypocrisy.

"I don't know," she added. "I've been wondering about that too. Carolyn –" She continued, oblivious to my exasperation – "is a sweetheart, and I don't want her to go, but she might want to stay with Alice. And we can't stop her if that's what she wants."

I decided to test something. "What if Carolyn –"

"Shh! Stop dropping the ball, Aurora! Remember, she's Daniel!"

This time I did point it out. "Well, you just called me Aurora, and my name's Diana, _remember, Delly?"_

"We are so bad at this," groaned Carolyn from across the road.

It took us another ten minutes to find Elkridge Avenue. The three of us slowed down the closer we got to number thirty-one, terrified that this wasn't going to be the Alice we were hoping for. When we stopped in the middle of the road looking up at the big white house, with a dark-blue painted door, Carolyn shank back down into her disguise and backed away. "I can't do it," she whispered. "W-what if she doesn't like me anymore?"

I volunteered to knock on the door. Uneasily, I mounted the steps, looked down at my friends, and shut my eyes tightly and rapped on the door. Once. Twice. Finally, I knocked again resolutely, determined to drive the fox out of her hole. Then, just as I was bringing my fist down again on the door, it swung open, leaving me unbalanced.

The occupant of the doorway opened their mouth and said, "Hello?"


	14. Chapter 14

"Uh – hi. My name's Diana Comet," I lied. My palms were sweating again. "Are you Alexandria Graham?"

"Umhum," she said. She was a short fox with dyed brown fur, just as Delly had said. She was dressed in a simple blue shirt with a silver dove pattern around the collar. I squinted at it, trying to remember where I had seen the design before. It was so familiar…

As soon as she assented, Carolyn and Delly were beside me. Alice blinked at them, surprised that anyone could move so fast. Delly began, "Do you remember a young deer named Carrie early on in your life? She would have been convicted of murder?"

"No," she said. I couldn't tell if she was lying, but Carolyn was crumpling against the wall beside me. The fox looked around, bewildered. "Who're you, the cops? I know nothing about any deer."

"We're not the police." I suddenly remembered where I'd seen the blue shirt/silver dove pattern before. It had been covering the green shirt that I was wearing now at GracieGrace. "Carrie's been looking for you, Alice. Come on, if you remember her and if she was your friend, now's the time to speak up."

"I ain't going nowhere with the Shadow!" she said defiantly.

I saw Carolyn bite her lip in pain.

"Miss," said Delly, stepping forward uncertainly. She held out a picture. "We're only trying to locate a lost friend. Now, if you look at this –" It was the picture Carolyn had given us to try and identify Alice – "and you recognize it as you, please say so now."

Alice batted the picture away without looking. "What are you, crazy? If the cops find the Shadow here, y'know they'll arrest me too!"

As if by magic, we heard a siren from behind us. Alice deliberated slowly, then finally grabbed all three of us by the collar and wrenched us inside, slamming the door. "Shit, that'll be Fred down the street. I keep _telling _him to stop leaving stolen cars on his lawn," she mumbled as she threw curtains routinely across the window.

"Alice, please," said Carolyn out loud. It was the first time she'd said anything since I'd knocked on the door. "I risked my life to save you, even as I wondered if you were already dead. Can you think of _one _thing you could do for me in return, such as for instance _looking at me?"_

It was the fiercest I'd ever heard Carolyn be. Alice looked up, startled. "What did you just say to me?"

"I said to look at me. Look at me, Alice!" She removed her disguise. "All that time I stayed with the gang, it was for you. I broke out of jail to save you. I knew the other girls were going to kill you if I didn't do something, and this is the thanks I get? _'I ain't going nowhere with the Shadow'."_

Delly and I exchanged a wordless expression.

"Care, I never meant to offend you…" Alice's expression had softened a little. She blinked and looked down. "I'm – I'm sorry. The thing is –" She took a breath. "The thing is, I wasn't who you thought I was. I wasn't a little girl who was forced into living with a gang. I – I _was _the gang. I started it, I acted cute and manipulated people into believing I was a frail little child who had nowhere better to go…"

Carolyn sank onto the floor of Alice's drab house, listening to her faraway voice.

"I lied, I stole, I would sneak out in the middle of the night to drink and manipulate men into drinking with me. Once they were dead drunk and passed out, I would steal their car keys and go joyriding. The only one who knew the real me was my victims. I lied to you every day, Care. I'm so sorry."

Alice turned away from us. The mask on her face had fallen off, to show a broken, tired woman much older than her age. "I'm sorry. You can't rush in on your white horse and save me from murderous, traitorous female gang members – because I am one." The police car sirens eerily died away on her last word. Carolyn stared at her, wide-eyed.

"No! Alice, you don't have to be…"

"I'm not the girl you thought I was. I'm not your friend." Alice said this flatly. "I was even one of the girls who lied to the police and turned you in for the murder."

Carolyn let out a cry of physical pain. I shook my head hard. "But then, can't you talk to the police and tell them? Tell them – that Carolyn's innocent. It's the least you can do for her, I mean, she broke out of jail for you, she's been traveling all the way across the world. All you have to do is bear witness for your best friend." My voice cracked as I finished. I knew I was babbling, but I couldn't stand hearing my old friend cry out like that.

Alice shook her head hard. "No way. I try not to get messed up with the cops in any way. Not after I belonged to a gang. Police don't take kindly to previous gang members."

"Just consider it, okay?" I beseeched her as she shoved us out into the street.


	15. Chapter 15

**I forgot to put this in earlier, but Alice is one of my characters. And Labelle is going to show up soon, those of you who are getting impatient! In this chapter we're going to watch Aurora attempt to get ready for her date with her snarky friends' help. (Yes, it is a date, whether Aurora says so or not.)**

"Maybe I should just turn myself in," came the melancholy voice of Carolyn from upstairs, one day later. The next day would be Saturday and I had been stressing over the fact that Labelle never said where or when we were having dinner. Delly was just sitting there smirking at me, insisting silently that Labelle was interested in me, which wasn't as uncomfortable to consider as I would have thought. Both of us felt guilty about abandoning Carolyn in my room, but she had rejected all efforts of comfort on our part, telling us forcefully that she would rather be alone.

"That wouldn't solve anything, Carolyn," I replied from downstairs. "Alice might come around and tell the police you're innocent. I looked up your case on the Internet – if you're found you'll get a life sentence, unless someone proves you're not guilty."

"We could go again tomorrow and try to convince Alice again," Delly said thoughtfully.

"I'm going out to dinner tomorrow," I reminded her, causing Delly to grin.

"Really? I hadn't heard."

"Please, just don't turn yourself in yet," I called upstairs. "You haven't come all this way to give up, understand?" To Delly I said, "I don't think she's ever going to be able to trust anyone again. I'm amazed she managed to for this long, with her life. While I'm gone tomorrow, can you make sure to watch her and make sure she doesn't run away again?"

Delly nodded soberly.

"You could even move her to your house. I know she's more comfortable there." Delly's house was much bigger than mine; I hadn't even started paying off Tom Nook's loan. I felt guilty about it every time I went into his shop. He'd started making an expectant expression whenever I started to speak, then looking disappointed but resigned when I left the shop without turning over a Bell.

I served us dinner that night, and tried hard to discreetly examine the way Delly ate her food. Of course she noticed, being a squirrel and therefore alert – "What?"

I flushed hard. "Okay, fine, I've never been in a fancy restaurant before and that's undoubtedly where Labelle's taking us."

She snickered. "Ooh. It's already become an 'us.' Sorry. Go on."

"I've always noticed that you have excellent manners when eating, so I've been trying to study them. Go ahead. Laugh."

"I'm flattered, actually," intoned Delly. "And I've discovered something."

"What's that?"

"It's really, really hard to keep a straight face when you're telling your straight friend you're flattered that she's using you as a model to prepare for her lesbian date. Seriously, Aurie, you're going to need help with this."

I made a face. "I'm not bringing you along."

Both Carolyn and Delly laughed, which was nice, even if it was at my expense. Carolyn had been subdued all day and most of yesterday night. Delly copied my expression. "Ew. Even if you invited me I wouldn't go to watch you two make out all night." Ignoring my protests, she continued, "Have you even ever gone on a date before?"

I blushed again. "No. And it isn't a date."

"This is going to be difficult," she sighed, and sternly pointed a fork at me. "You need to just accept that it's a date, or we'll have to pause every five minutes while you firmly assure us that it isn't. I don't think any of us want to waste time watching you try to convince us that you're not seeing anyone when we could be helping you prepare for tomorrow night. Savvy?"

I threw up my arms, then winced when I stubbed my finger against the low ceiling of my dining room. "Fine. I still say it isn't a date, but I'll stop complaining about you two and that's the best you're going to get."

"How are we g-going to help her prepare for tomorrow night when it's _tomorrow?"_ asked Carolyn skeptically. "I m-mean, I haven't s-seen a boy for a long time, but even I know that y-you can't start getting r-ready twenty hours b-before the d-date."

"You're right," said Delly seriously. "You really haven't seen a boy for a long time." She turned to me. "I think all of us know that the green shirt looks best on you, but she's seen that before. Then again, she made it and it might flatter her that you're wearing her design." She tapped her fork contemplatively against her chin. "But still, we don't want her to think that's all you have to wear. Go dig through your wardrobe and bring out everything you own."

The clothes at our tailor's shop were much cheaper than at GracieGrace, although they weren't as posh. I had been buying different shirts and pants from the tailor's shop as soon as I realized that the meager supply I'd brought in my suitcase weren't going to sustain me. I dumped two armloads on the floor in front of Delly, who was already finished with supper, and began to sort the clothes into separate piles. Carolyn pushed her plate away and swiveled around in her chair to watch us with interest.

Delly and I – mostly Delly – began assembling an outfit for me, lamenting over my lack of shoes. Oh, Aurora! How could you possibly not own twelve pairs of six-inch high heels? When you live in rough, rocky terrain, too, I mean _really, _Aurie; you need to get some taste. It doesn't matter that if you try wandering around in heels on this ground, you might fall and break a hip; what matters is if you fall _gracefully._

I abandoned the pile of clothes and sat off to the side with Carolyn while Delly rejected about fifty good outfits on account of me having no matching shoes. Carolyn rolled her eyes at me, and stage-whispered, "I went on a date one time when I was fourteen. All I wore was a pair of jeans and a white tank-top under a black shrug. He didn't care what I wore, really. I don't think it makes much difference to them."

"Yeah," said Delly, who had heard. "But Aurie's seeing a girl, and I guarantee that a _female designer _is going to notice what she wears more than a guy." She actually had a point there, but I made sure not to let her know I felt that way.

"We need to make sure it's not too garish," Delly commanded when Carolyn finally came to help her. "We don't want her to be noticed."

"Don't we?" asked Carolyn, scrutinizing a pair of thick furry brown boots.

"No, we don't want her to look like she's trying. We want people to look at her and say 'Wow, she's really pretty, but not because her clothes are all colorful or revealing or because she's wearing so much makeup.' We want their subconscious to notice her."

After almost an hour, they had picked out a simple pair of black slacks, the furry brown boots, a brown jacket that matched the boots, and a red blouse that I didn't even know I owned that they said would "contrast with my eyes perfectly." The blouse was a little more revealing than I was comfortable with, but I trusted my friends.

"If only we had something to match her hair with," mused Delly. "Oh!" She snatched a bottle of black fingernail polish off my bathroom counter and returned with it. "Here. I know you're not goth, but the black will go lovely with your hair color." She shook it for a second, uncapped it, and started painting my nails. I didn't resist. Delly had to have been on a thousand dates; she knew what she was doing. Then I caught myself and almost jerked my hand away. I had started thinking of tomorrow in terms of a date.

Delly finished painting both hands. "Don't touch anything for at least thirty minutes while they dry," she instructed. Carolyn and Delly laid out my outfit for tomorrow on my bed and put the boots next to them. "Come on, Carolyn, let's go see if Aurie has any makeup that isn't just lip gloss in the bathroom." They disappeared.

After thirty minutes, they returned with a whole tray of cosmetics. Delly held out a paw. "Here," she told me, and dropped something into my hands. "For luck."

I looked. It was a pair of earrings; glittery gold and shaped like a fleur-de-lis. I inspected them. "Are these yours?" I asked.

"No, they're actually Carolyn's. Back when she stole everything, when she was in middle school, a group of girls were going to swear her into their clique if she shoplifted one item out of a jewelry store. It was her initiation ritual. She felt so nervous, and inside she knew it was really wrong because no one but her was gaining from it, that she paid for the earrings out of her birthday money. No one would ever know she didn't steal them, and the girls went ahead and swore her in. She's always loved the earrings since."

I looked at them with a new light. "Do you mind?" I asked Carolyn hesitantly, knowing that she was probably attached to them.

She shook her head and smiled. "N-not at all. Go ahead."

I tried the earrings on, and even I had to admit that the gold sparkled under the black of my hair in a pretty way. Carolyn and Delly looked happy for a minute, then Delly checked her watch. "Oh, crap. I have to get home. Carolyn, want to come?"

"Okay." Carolyn waved at me. She definitely seemed to have recovered. It was a little eerie, actually; she had learned her friend had lied to her her whole life and she had nothing else to stay out of jail for, and yet she seemed to have gotten over it.

That night, I fell asleep easily and had a very peculiar dream about a certain hedgehog.


	16. Chapter 16

**In this chapter, something unexpected happens that _finally _reveals the meaning of the title. I hope you guys are as happy as I am.**

In the morning, Delly came over, but she wasn't happy and anticipative like I expected, seeing as she believed I was going on a date tonight. Instead, she looked anxious and sleep deprived. The mystery was solved when I opened the door to let her in and she blurted out, "Carolyn's gone!"

"What?" I replied in shock.

"She must have run away last night. My God, you were so right, Aurie, she probably couldn't trust us anymore so she ran away!"

"Did she leave anything? A note?"

"No, nothing. I was out all night trying to find out where she'd gone." That explained the sleep deprivation. Abruptly, Delly threw herself into my arms, and we hugged for a long time. Both of us had found ourselves in a deep friendship with the deer, and seeing that she hadn't been able to trust us hurt tremendously. Not to mention that on her own, she might be caught by the police. We had been her refuge.

"Are you still going tonight?" Delly said when we finished hugging.

I blinked at her. "Of course not. I'm going to call Labelle and cancel so we can go out and look for Carolyn. Now, we obviously can't call the police, but…"

"Aww, Aurie! You have to go!"

"What?"

"You have to go see Labelle! Look, Carolyn wouldn't have wanted you to cancel just because of her, and you'll hurt Labelle if you don't go. I'll search for Carolyn on my own." When I looked unconvinced, she added, "I didn't spend all that time picking out and arranging an outfit for you for nothing."

I smiled, but it was a tearful smile because I missed Carolyn.

"Can I have breakfast at your place since I'm already here?" she asked.

Over breakfast, and part of lunch, we finally decided that the only other person in this area Carolyn really knew was Alice. Possibly she'd have gone there to try to convince her to vouch for Carolyn's innocence. It was a start, anyway. Delly was making plans to go to Beryl while I was on my date. I suggested that she should leave now.

"What, are you kidding? No, I'm staying here to help you get ready," she stated, like I should have known. "With no help, you'd probably put the pants on backward. Now, if both of us are gone and Carolyn decides to come back, we should write a note, yeah?"

_Dear Carolyn,_

_ If you're reading this, then hooray, it means you decided to come back! Aurora is on her date and Delly's out trying to find you. Please, please don't go anywhere until we get back! (Or until Delly gets back, hopefully Aurora will be staying out all night at Labelle's place (hint hint).) Ugh, Delly should never be granted permission of a pen, that last part was her._

_ We're so, so sorry you didn't trust us enough to stay with us. We're both begging you to stay here; after all you're like a sister to us. We would never hurt you or turn you in or anything bad. Aurora promises she'll take care of your earrings if you don't come back._

_ Love you,_

_ Aurie and Del_

"Think that'll convince her to stay?" I asked wearily, putting the pen down and surveying the ink blots all over the page where we had fought for ownership of the pen. Two people with different opinions should never try to write a letter together. "And no, _hopefully _Aurora will be returning home at nine o' clock like a respectable and –"

"– prudish –"

"– person. God, Delly, who has sex on their first date?"

Delly waggled her eyebrows at me. "Hey, I never wrote anything about sex; all I said was that you might stay out at her house all night. Looks like someone's got a dirty mind!"

My cheeks burned. "Get your own mind out of the gutter. I'm straight, just like you."

"You're the one who just said it was a date."

Delly, 1, Aurora, 0.

By late afternoon, I remembered something. "She never said when we're going out. Do you think I should go to the City and enter GracieGrace or something? Or is she coming to pick me up?" I hopped from foot to foot. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying my hair. Delly was sorting through her cosmetics, trying to find some foundation to build eye makeup on, and didn't respond for a second.

"Uh… oh, here it is. I would say you should get over to the City by about five-thirty, go into the boutique, and ask her what she wants to do. After all, you aren't specifically obligated to come up with a place to eat – she was the one who called you in the first place."

I fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Oh, no way. You are not serious. _You _asked her?"

"Accidentally," I admitted, hoping she'd let the subject drop. Surprisingly, she did, moving on to worry some more out loud about Carolyn and where she was and if the police had found her yet. She couldn't get out of our minds for long.

Suddenly, I had the thought that this is what my family had felt like when I'd ran away. It was an unpleasant thought that I didn't feel like entertaining, so I pushed it away, but it returned with its friends Guilt and Worry. "Now look," I told them mentally, of course not letting Delly hear, "I'm getting ready to go out and I don't want you hanging around. I wish I could worry about Carolyn right now, but the fact is I haven't got any time." I felt faintly ashamed of myself, and swatted at Guilt, which was opening its mouth. "Shut up. Delly's right – if I cancel the trip, I probably won't help find Carolyn all that much, and I'll hurt Labelle besides." With that, I changed into my black slacks and red blouse while Delly did my makeup.

"Okay," she said, out loud, naturally; stepping back. "You look fantastic, and the eye shadow works perfectly. Go ahead and look in the mirror while I find Carolyn's earrings." She moved over to my dresser table as I looked at myself.

"It looks good, thanks," I said, understating my appearance tremendously. But I'd done so much mirror time already, and I was so worried about Carolyn, that I didn't feel like worrying about my exterior. Delly brought over the earrings and I carefully screwed them in.

Delly helped me tie the boots. She was instructing me about what to do when I got to the City – "Go inside GracieGrace and act as nonchalant as possible. If she's helping someone, wait patiently and she'll come over to you. Then act natural and ask where you're going to eat. In the worst case scenario – she hasn't planned a place to eat – there's a very nice pasta restaurant not far from her store. But be warned, if you suggest you're going there, you'll have to pay. So take some money with you just in case. And good luck."

She walked me to the bus stop, and looked me over once. "You look incredible, Aurie. I'll see you later. Hopefully both Carolyn and I will be waiting to hear all about it." With that, she boarded the bus to Alice's house in Beryl. I waited patiently until the bus to the City arrived, and with some trepidation, I embarked on my date.


	17. Chapter 17

**This one'll be a really long one! Aurora's arriving at her date (heh heh heh) and this totally features Labelle and Aurora almost exclusively. There are a few mentions of main characters and a few soon-to-be main characters, but mostly it's just the pair getting to know each other.**

Even as I made my way to GracieGrace as soon as the bus dropped me off, I couldn't help worrying about Carolyn. I reminded myself that there was no way I could possibly help by worrying, but I still had a picture in my mind of Carolyn, exhausted and terrified, bloody and running from the police for the sole reason that she hadn't trusted us enough. It really did hurt, although I tried not to think about it.

On the plus side, the weather this evening was really nice, so at least it wasn't raining wherever Carolyn was. I stepped in front of the automatic doors of GracieGrace and slipped through the opening crack. There weren't as many customers today. It reminded me of something. I stepped up to Labelle, who was turned away and hanging up an exquisite puffed grey ball gown, and said next to her ear, "Are you going to tell me why you were crying that day you opened up late?"

"Aurora!" She jerked away in surprise. "Oh, gosh. I didn't know you had arrived. And, shh, we can't talk about it here." She turned around and blushed when she saw I was wearing. "Uh… y-you look good." Inside, I cursed Delly. "Wait just a sec, I forgot to mention when you should come over so I didn't bother getting ready. I'll be right back." She smiled at me and ducked into the Employees Only room.

Five minutes later, a lot shorter than it took me to get ready, she returned in a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and a white skirt that fit her rather well. I tried to pretend I hadn't thought that, smiling at her to cover my double-take. "I feel sorta overdressed."

"No, you're perfect," she said, then blushed horribly when she realized what she'd said. "I, uh, only meant that the place we're going to is sort of fancy; they know me by now, so I can wear whatever I like really, but outsiders to the restaurant have to dress up at least a little or the waiters look all disapproving." She made to take my hand, but jerked back as if she'd branded herself with a white-hot iron. "Uh, shall we go?"

"Okay." I followed her out of the store and watched as she locked up. "Is it okay that you're closing so early…?" I gestured at the key she was holding. Like I had said early on, I valued keys that fit easily, and this one was no exception. But I couldn't repress the feeling that the moody Gracie fans might get angry.

"Oh, yeah, it's fine. I talked to Gracie about it. She only wanted to know who you are, but once she realized you were – you know – Holly's sister, she said it was all okay." As if she felt she needed to clarify, she added, "Because, you know, Holly's a designer."

"Right," I said. We began walking, Labelle leading the way. For some reason, we started going down a back alley. I wanted to say something about the shady area I knew this to be, and to question it, but my mind was still wrapped around the task of quashing the jealousy that seemed to have risen when Labelle mentioned Holly. _Enough,_ I told myself sternly. _You're only acting like this because Delly went on and on about it being a date, which it totally isn't._ That resolved, I continued walking, slightly happier.

As if she guessed the first half of my thoughts, Labelle said, "I know this area seems sketchy, with Crazy Redd's undercover stolen goods shop and all, but the restaurant we're going to is actually quite nice. It's only over here because it's members only. I'm allowed to bring a friend, though; don't worry."

"I'm not worried," I lied. I _really _didn't want to be in the same area as a front for stolen merchandise. As if detecting my discomfort, Labelle squeezed my hand; I realized in shock that we were holding hands without my recognition. I tugged mine away a little, not really wanting to let go but unsure how I could remain the way I was without embarrassment pervading the area. Labelle noticed my movement and jerked her hand away self-consciously again.

We didn't speak until we reached Labelle's restaurant. She turned the handle of a door embedded in the wall, which I hadn't noticed; the door swung open and I reluctantly followed my companion inside.

It was a lot bigger than I imagined. Soft strobe lights were playing in the lobby; a disco ball was revolving slowly from the ceiling. In the lighting, everyone in the restaurant looked ghostly. Labelle pulled me over across the posh, expensive carpet (I felt self-aware and prayed fervently that my heavy furry brown boots weren't scuffing the fabric) towards a couples table by the wall. I followed her, gawking at the aristocratically dressed patrons and the impeccable music that seemed just quiet enough for dialogue but loud enough to dance to. Indeed, in the center of the room, on a lowered area of the floor, the strobe lights were more advanced and the music got louder. I decided that this was probably a nightclub as well as a restaurant.

When I inquired, Labelle nodded. "This half," she said, gesturing toward the area we were sitting, "is a restaurant. The other half is a miniature dance floor. This place is designed for stressed-out people who are working too hard: they can come and get dinner after they finish with work, and get out their tension afterwards on the floor. I usually only come here to get dinner, since the food really is very good."

A waitress traipsed up to us. "Hi, Labelle." My escort really was a regular here. I took careful note of the waitress's clothes. She wasn't wearing a suit, but instead a tie-dye tank top and sneakers. "Welcome to Negative Zero," she said to me. "Here are your menus. When you're ready to order, you know what to do, Labelle." She crossed her eyes and walked away.

Labelle shook her head slowly. "Ugh. She must be new here." She picked up one of the menus the waitress had left. "Order anything you want and don't worry about the price, okay?" She handed one over to me. "There's a bell next to the table that we're supposed to pull when we're ready to order, just so you know." I nodded and opened my menu.

A few minutes later, I said embarrassedly, "I seriously don't recognize anything on here."

Labelle laughed, not unkindly. "I did the same thing when Gracie first employed me. I picked out the weird crawfish-looking thing – it was a mistake. I've been here long enough to know which ones are good and which aren't, so if you're confused, just ask." She returned to her own menu, although I'm sure she didn't really need it and was just reading it to make me feel more at ease. It had the opposite effect, and I had to bite my lip to keep my teeth from chattering in anxiety and restlessness. What the hell was I doing here?

Finally, I nodded. "Go ahead and ring the bell."

"You didn't even ask," she frowned. "Are you going with gut instinct? That's what I did the first time I came, and now I never speak of that except to refer to it as the Crawfish Incident. The next event my gut endured was over one of the toilets in the Ladies' Room."

I smiled and shrugged. "Nah, I've decided to just tell the waitress I'd like to have the same thing you're having, because _I _trust your gut." We grinned at each other and made eye contact. We sat there like idiots for a few more seconds before Labelle had the sense to reach across the table and ring the bell.

Almost immediately, a different waiter appeared. "Hello, ladies. Hi, Labelle." He winked at her and Labelle rolled her eyes at me. "You've decided to order, right?"

"Yes," Labelle said straightaway. "I'd like the lemonade slash Italian soda with the gold flecks and whipped cream please, and for the main course a fried chicken with spice sauce. The first course will be my regular salad and pasta dish, please. We'll decide on dessert later."

The waiter nodded, having scribbled it down, and turned to me, purposefully brushing his hand against Labelle's left breast as he moved to grasp the back of her chair. It wasn't lost on either me nor Labelle, and I felt a rush of protectiveness. But Labelle flashed an exasperated yet warning look across the table at me, and I quickly said, "I'll have what she's having, please," somehow managing to keep my voice civil.

Once the waiter had scribbled down my order and walked away – taking care to touch the hedgehog's shoulder as he moved – Labelle let out an enormous sigh and another roll of the eyes. She reminded me of Delly. "That jerk."

"Does he even _know _you're a lesbian?" I asked. A second later it crossed my mind that it might be considered tactless to spout Labelle's sexual orientation out in public. Labelle, however, didn't seem bothered.

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "Yeah, I think the stupid womanizer knows somewhere deep down – I mean, I'm not shy about coming out practically anywhere – but he doesn't really care. To him I'm just another girl. And it's programmed into his brain to take advantage of girls. Arguing with him or fighting doesn't work; he seems to think any attention we give him is worth it and means we're interested." She let out an irritated sigh. "Anyway," she said, changing the subject, "wait until you try the lemonade. It's phenomenal."

"Speaking of food," I said, referring to something I had noticed when Labelle was ordering hers. "Aren't hedgehogs herbivores? I don't mean to pry, but –"

"It's fine," she said, looking pensive. "Hedgehogs are omnivores, technically. I just happen to prefer meat more than others. And yes, before you ask, the gold flecks in the lemonade are indeed real gold. They are edible, though, they just kind of add a metallic zing to the taste. You'll understand when you try it… hey, and when I start rambling like this? I'm begging you, it happens a lot, so take me out of my misery and interrupt me…"

I laughed at her pleading face. The first thing that popped into my mind was the late-opening incident, so I asked about it. "Labelle? The day you called me about the green shirt, something happened between that time and opening time, right? I mean, you were crying. I'm sorry, but I did notice. What's up?"

She looked unsure, and I backtracked immediately.

"Never mind, it's none of my business."

"That's fine," she said. "Okay. We're out of GracieGrace, so I guess my boss won't totally fire me if I tell you." Labelle put down the fork she'd been playing with and leaned forward. "Gracie has been nagging me recently at being serious about work lately. I am serious, I like working, but if she fires me I have nowhere else to go."

She stopped abruptly and thanked the sexist waiter, who had brought our lemonade. He grinned lecherously at her again. Once more, she waited until he was gone before reacting: she blew out her breath. "Jerk. Total jerk. His name's Damian. Do me a favor someday and tell him I'm not interested, and even if I were straight he wouldn't be my type." She shook her head. "Never mind. Anyway, I'd always wanted to be a big-time clothes designer. So I ran away from home one day to find Gracie and beg her to employ me."

I took a sip of my lemonade and found that the metallic taste zipped and zinged through my head in a way that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Cautiously, I tasted it again, making sure to not sip too much. "Uh, sorry to interrupt, but is this alcoholic?"

"No, it's not." She took a sip of her own through a curly straw. "I had to beg and plead and write letters to her and show her thousands of my best work before she agreed. But on one condition. I had to make sure that my family wouldn't interfere with my occupation, because she was worried they'd find me and drag me home. I mean, I did run away."

I understood how that felt. After all, I had put on a full disguise before going to my hometown, frightened that if my family saw me, they would recognize me and pull me home. But I didn't interrupt Labelle, who was staring off into space.

"I got a letter just after I called you to tell you the shirt was done. It was from my sister, Sable. Apparently, they had found an address for me here in the City, and in the letter she said that she would never give up on me, that I was family. I called her and warned her not to interfere with my work, but Gracie came in just as I was explaining why Sable couldn't keep writing to me. Gracie had found the letter. She's a sweetheart and my best friend, but she's also my boss, and she sat me down and gave me a severe talking-to about how Sable's letter counted as impeding. I was given one more chance. But as a result from her lecture, I couldn't arrive in time at GracieGrace to unlock it and everything, and ten minutes after the opening time was when I finally arrived, as you know. The bus driver had been slow, a girl had accused me of stealing her purse – which I hadn't – and slapped me in the face; I almost lost your special shirt. By the time I arrived at the store, everything had happened to make me upset, and I was late. I was so scared I was going to be fired. But Gracie's generous and although my sister is in danger of ruining my job, despite the fact that I keep sending them checks, I was allowed to stay."

She blinked suddenly and looked around. "Oh, goddess. My voice is so hoarse. I'm sorry, we probably weren't supposed to be talking about my family problems. I must have made you feel really awkward and horrible." She sniffled a little, as if reliving the terrible day had caused her to cry, but she insisted it was just a slight citrus allergy.

I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "First of all, you were sad. You're allowed to be sad. Sometimes when you're depressed, you can go ahead and think about yourself instead of other people; it won't make other people hate you or anything."

She looked up and smiled wanly. "Thank you. And you said 'first of all…' I'm assuming that there's a 'second of all' on the way?"

"Second of all, if you have a citrus allergy, why are you drinking lemonade?"

Labelle giggled a little. I continued. "But if Gracie's only giving you one more chance to stay at GracieGrace, why did she let you out tonight? Doesn't the store usually stay open until nine o' clock or something?"

The hedgehog rolled her eyes. "Gracie thinks I'm not getting out enough. She actually told me that if I didn't go outside soon, she was setting me up on a date with your sister again to force me out. She did that before, you know. That's how Holly and I first got together."

Another spasm of jealousy, but I refused to acknowledge it this time. Feeling like we needed a quick change of subject, I said, "Er – how long does it usually take for them to bring out the food?" Lame, but I was hungry and I did wonder how much longer it would be.

"Well, this isn't exactly a fast food place and since it's so popular, they have to take a longer time than most restaurants to finish the courses. But I usually just watch the other people in the restaurant to kill time." She pointed at a slender black cat out on the dance floor that I realized with a jolt had been a patron of GracieGrace. "That girl. Her name's Mari. She comes in a lot to the store to buy mostly my designer clothes, and do you know who she's dating?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Damian."

_"No way."_

"Yeah. That creep – I know not all men are like that, because Gracie's cousins always come and visit a lot and at least they're polite. But Mari has to come into the store to complain about him every two days about how he's cheating on her. The only reason she's dating him is because this place, Negative Zero, pays really high wages, and she needs that to support her and her kid, Aiden. The only reason she comes here to dance is because music is pretty much her life, and she gets a discount on food prices because Damian is her boyfriend."

I blew out a breath of my own. "Thank God all men aren't like that."

She agreed. "Amen."

I snuck a look at Mari, who was wearing a loose glitzy gold tank top that went really well with her black fur. She seemed to be working out a load of stress on the dance floor, rocking out with her eyes shut tight. The cat opened one of her eyes for a second, waved at Labelle, and turned away. "Does that really work? Dancing out nervous tension, I mean?" I asked.

"If it didn't work, this club wouldn't have become so popular," Labelle pointed out reasonably and dropped the subject.

We sat there in a comfortable silence, listening to the music that Mari and the other animals on the floor were dancing to. I caught Labelle examining Carolyn's earrings from across the table, but I made no move to make her flinch and look away. Carolyn. It suddenly made me think of something: a blurry image of Alice, wearing… wearing a GracieGrace brand shirt, and the only GracieGrace in this area was Labelle's.

Without warning, I turned to look at her. As I predicted, she started and averted her gaze from my face to the floor, but my mind was racing and I had no time to look away apologetically. "Have you ever met a girl named Alexandria Graham?"


	18. Chapter 18

For a second, Labelle stared at me for a second uncomprehendingly, and then her eyebrow rose. "Alexandria… Graham? Yeah, she came into the store once with Mari to buy a few of Gracie's shirts. Why?"

I hesitated. I don't know what made me ask about Alice – I had had a strange idea that if Labelle knew Alice personally, she could convince the previous gang member to swear Carolyn's innocence easier. But I clearly couldn't tell Labelle about Carolyn. I didn't want to be arrested, and furthermore, I didn't want Labelle to be roped into the situation with Delly and I. So I braced myself and waved my own question away. "Never mind. Forget it."

Labelle looked strangely at me, but was polite enough to not question further. Damian and another waiter, followed by a waitress, returned to our table, laden with platters and covered dishes; the waitress held out a napkin between me and my lemonade glass before refilling my drink so the liquid wouldn't splash on me. A slab of meat, spiced with something that looked sort of yellowish-golden, was placed onto my plate with tongs; followed by a secondary course of a kind of salad. I didn't recognize the sauce.

"Try it," Labelle urged me when I hesitated, my hand halfway toward my fork. I had frozen because the chicken under the spices was bubbling. "The sauce keeps the temperature in. It's supposed to be as hot as it is. You may want to blow on it a little before you try it."

Apprehensively, I blew on a piece of chicken. I chewed for a second before being violently assaulted with a burst of flavor. It wasn't bad; I enjoyed the taste, but it was just so _intense._ And hot. My eyes watering, I reached over casually and tried not to look too desperate as I picked up the icy lemonade glass and filled my mouth with blissfully cold fluid.

Labelle grinned, not unkindly. She seemed to pick up on everything! "I've found what's best is to drink something cold first, so your mouth is thinly shielded from the heat, before trying the chicken. It'll cool down in a minute."

I tried it, and to my surprise found that she was correct. And once the intensity of the flavor and the heat both calmed down, I discovered that the chicken was actually even better than I had thought. I alternately sipped at the lemonade and took bites of the chicken. I was surprised later on when I remembered that I hadn't been trying desperately to remember which fork to pick up and not to put my elbows on the table. It just seemed natural.

The salad was good too, but I took less interest in that than the girl across the table from me. She looked nervous and fidgety; she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs under her skirt. From her demeanor, I decided that she wanted to say something but couldn't quite work up the nerve to ask or state it. I crossed my eyes across the table to get her attention. "What?"

Labelle blushed. "Nothing. It's fine." She looked away.

"No, seriously. It's either you tell me now or I badger you all night about it."

She looked uneasy and shook her head. But I put on my pitiful face and stared at her until she blushed again and smiled a little. "Er – I really shouldn't ask. It's none of my business." She rubbed two fingers together and stared at them as if they were emitting magical sparks. Since she had done me the courtesy of not inquiring further when I had mentioned Alice, I let it go and continued to eat.

But the silence was lengthening and becoming uncomfortable, and the two of us started glancing up at the ceiling or down at our feet. Finally both of us blurted out what we were going to say at the same time: I said, "My friend's a fugitive and I need your help," just as Labelle said, "I was going to ask if you were gay."

We stared at each other for a second before Labelle's face flushed. "Let's go with your topic of conversation; it sounds much more interesting."

Half a second passed while I considered it. I had no idea if Labelle could keep a secret or whether she would keep one this big, and besides, the Shadow had taken flight. Carolyn wasn't in Falcon anymore. Did it really matter whether we convinced Alice to talk to the police or not? And besides, one witness who said that Carolyn was innocent wouldn't make the law enforcement agency stop chasing her.

But it was worth a shot. I made a split-second decision. "Labelle – do you know about that criminal on the streets that the cops have nicknamed 'The Shadow'?"

Labelle made a bewildered face and nodded. "She was also under the name of Carrie King, I think." She wadded up a paper napkin and began twisting it between her paws in her lap.

"Well – I need you to promise to keep this a secret, because two of my friends could get in really big trouble if this gets out." I was starting to wonder if I had done the wrong thing, and the distraction from the way Labelle was looking at me wasn't helping any.

"I promise," she said, continuing to affix her attention on me intently.

I hesitantly, in a low voice, began explaining. "…so you see, I need someone who's a friend of Alice's to convince her to back Carolyn in court – if Delly can find her. Half the state police are out looking for her. I doubt one young woman can do better."

"Goddess, you are in it deep. What about Mari? I know she invited Alexandria, sorry – Alice – on a few shopping trips. Maybe Mari knows her better than I do. I definitely don't remember her that well."

"Do you think she'd mind if I asked her –" I stopped, watching Labelle's face freeze into an expression of shock and fear. I twisted around in my chair to see Damian standing behind me, an inscrutable look on his face. He had heard everything.

In seconds, I watched Delly's future, Carolyn's future, Labelle's future, and my own swirl down into the toilet of the abyss.


	19. Chapter 19

"So how'd it go?"

I had arrived back at Delly's house and thrown myself onto her sofa. My face was buried in a cushion. "Urgh. It was a total fiasco."

I proceeded to tell her all about how I had betrayed us all and doomed Carolyn, wherever she may be (Delly had not succeeded in finding her at Alice's house). Delly didn't burst into metaphorical flame with anger, surprisingly enough. She just frowned sympathetically and made a soft whistling noise through her teeth.

"Aww. Aurie, that sucks."

"What?" My spiky head pulled out of a cushion. "You're not mad?"

She shrugged. "Why would I be? I'm sorry for _you. _You were just finally getting to know the girl" – she raised a hand over my protests – "and then two parts of your social life collide and you have to deal with some slutty stud guy who cheats on his girlfriend knowing our one greatest secret. I'm not mad at you, Aurie. You were only trying to help."

Our one greatest secret? Maybe for her, but I had specifically refrained from telling Delly about what happened after Labelle and I left the restaurant. Labelle had been muttering violently under her breath – "That jerk, that horrible, evil bastard, what makes him think he can listen in on your personal business? When he heard us talking, he should have gone away, not tried to eavesdrop…"

I had been slightly touched that she was angry at him for listening in on _my_ business, but I hadn't been too emotional otherwise. As we walked back to GracieGrace, I had mostly been listening detachedly to Labelle and thinking things like _it's all over, if he calls the police and reports us, we're dead, we're dead, he could easily get my name from the restaurant records – _until, of course, Labelle took my face in her hands and kissed me full on the lips.

My whole body had seized up. My eyes opened wide and I couldn't control the way my palms were sweating so hard. I was immediately bombarded with questions – why was she doing this? How do I feel about this? Why do I feel the way I think I feel about this? Why can't I just shut up with all these stupid questions – and then it was over. She had pulled away.

She said softly, "Now stop it. I can hear you worrying. If Damian reports you, which I'm sure he won't – he's done at least a million things that are more illegal than confessing to harboring a fugitive – we'll sort it out. And you can just tell the authorities exactly how innocent Carolyn is, and you can count on me to back you up." She smiled faintly, turned, and walked away. Through my dazed eyes and the pinpricks that were shooting through every space of exposed skin, I dimly registered that it was raining. The taste left on my lips was of her lip gloss, and I detachedly touched the spot where her face had brushed mine as I hurried through the rain towards the bus stop.

So of course I hadn't recounted that particular incident to Delly. Remembering it now, I involuntarily reached my hand up to my face again. The quills from her cheek had left a shallow scratch across my chin. But to be honest, at that moment, I really didn't care.

Why wasn't I being more freaked out that I had believed up until two months ago that I was straight, and now a girl was going around kissing me?

"Aurie?"

I snapped to attention. "Uh, yeah?"

"I just asked if you'd requested Mari's phone number from Labelle, so we could call and ask just how good friends she is with Alice."

None of the words registered with me except one. I shook my head and ran Delly's words through my head until they made sense. "Oh. No, I didn't."

"Well, it figures. If you're on a date with someone, you obviously don't want to ask them for their friend's phone number." Delly paused. "Hey. You didn't correct me when I said date." She shook her head slowly at the look on my face, which was attempting to be horror but the muscles in my face were too tired. "Maybe it wasn't such a fiasco as you make it out to be."

I had forgotten just how perceptive Delly is.

**Whee! We've finally gotten to the first kiss! It's taken longer than I expected, but I promise you, impatient readers, there's more action between Aurora and Labelle later on. And for the Carolyn fans, yep, she's coming, and there's (SPOILERS) going to be another male character with her when she returns!**


	20. Chapter 20

**This one's going to be kind of short. It's third person this time, with Carolyn as the subject. Thank you for reviewing, ****Eptastic Girl****!**

Carolyn slipped into an alley, tossing a Bell sack over her shoulder to pay the man who had given her the ride. She wiped a tear away from her eye from the overpowering scent of tobacco smoke and the homesickness.

Nonsense, Delly and Aurora weren't "home." She wished she could have gone on any other day than Aurora's date, she reflected as she hoisted her backpack up her arms. But fugitives had a rule: never stay more than a month in the same place. Carolyn had already broken that rule, to her immense disappointment. She'd spoken to Alice again in Beryl after she'd run away, which hadn't done her any good, so she had sworn the fox to silence about her location and continued on her own.

Where should she go now? She had found Alice, who was the whole reason she had broken out of jail. Alice hadn't satisfied her. Should she turn herself in, or should she keep on running away from the police?

Whenever Carolyn's mother, who had died when Carolyn was just seven, had been overwhelmed with decisions like this, she had laid out all of her choices and appraised them all fairly. Carolyn did so now, pressed against the damp stone alley wall, continuing to be alert in case someone found her here.

She could go back to Delly and Aurora.

She could go and try to talk to Alice again.

She could turn herself in.

She could keep running until the police caught her.

She could depend on Delly and Aurora to find evidence that she was innocent.

Carolyn examined the list of choices carefully. She had eliminated depending on Delly and Aurora from the start. Depending on people had never gone well for her in the past. She rejected the idea of going back to her friends, too – it would just make it that harder to run away from them again when she needed to. She didn't like the idea of talking to Alice again, either. Talking to her best friend gave her a weird, nostalgic feeling when she considered just how much the fox had changed from the fox she knew.

She wasn't quite sure about turning herself in. Carolyn would get a life sentence for murder, burglary, resisting arrest, assaulting a federal officer… there was a lot she hadn't told Aurora and Delly. When she went into hard time, as she was sure she would, it would be a lot different than juvie. She would be in a real prison with real hardened criminals.

Carolyn wasn't sure she could take that.

So she would keep out of prison as long as she could, she finally resolved. At least she could say that she went down fighting and never surrendered. Tears began to flow down her face when she considered the prospect of living on the streets for the rest of her life, and she blinked them away. Delly and Aurora had given her the false comfort of having a home. But it was finally time to move on.

She pushed herself away from the wall of the alley, hauled her backpack higher up her spine, and began to jog along the dark street with the unhurried rhythm of an animal who had nothing to do but didn't mind doing it.


	21. Chapter 21

**Sorry this is a little late. I was busy playing Animal Crossing. But luckily for you guys, Tom Nook's doing renovations on his shop again, so I can do practically nothing in the game. So here's a new chapter.**

_Dear Miss A. Swann,_

_ It has come to our attention that a Miss L. Able introduced you to our fine secret, Negative Zero, and has done the kindness of putting your name in for a membership card to the club. If you consent to becoming a member, please do us the courtesy of filling out the attached form and sending it back in this envelope._

_ Negative Zero, phenomenon restaurant / nightclub_

I couldn't suppress my smile as I pulled the form out of the beige envelope. Scribbled on the back of the heavy paper of the questionnaire was the message, "P.S. Good job; many, many people have lined up trying to hook Labelle and all failed. We're all totally admiring your spirit over here. I beg you to become a member so we can get the chance to ask how you did it."

Before the kiss, I would have snapped at them and refused to take the membership card. _She's not my girlfriend! I'm not even a lesbian! _But now I just read over the words again and felt that surge of uncertainty as to how I should proceed. The emotions that rose when I thought of Labelle were just too confusing. I hadn't had feelings like that for anyone, not even the one boyfriend I had had back in my first year of high school.

I finished with the membership form, signed with my acceptance of the participation (it had been a _really_ good nightclub) and closed the envelope. Delly entered the room just as I was heading out to put the letter in the mailbox. We'd been spending a lot of time at each other's houses lately. I stepped aside hastily so we didn't collide and asked, "Anything on Carolyn?"

"Nothing," Delly said gloomily. She had been searching the newspapers to see if The Shadow had been spotted anywhere. "Aurie, let's face it. She wanted to leave, I don't think she wants us to be looking for her."

I looked dubiously at her. "You're not giving up?"

"Well –" I looked at her as she stopped and wearily ran her paws through her fur. Her face was exhausted; whatever magical formula Harriet had used on our hair was both finally wearing off; we were bedraggled and our hair was unkempt. "You've got to admit, Aurora, we're in deep trouble. This Damian guy knows about us, and he doesn't seem to be one to keep a secret. I'm still not mad at you. But this is a real tough situation we're in, and the further we distance ourselves from Carolyn, the better it'll turn out for us."

My only reply was dashing upstairs, a look of realization frozen on my face. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner. As Delly followed me in confusion, I dug through all the things under my bed, running my friend's words through my head – "We're in deep trouble," I repeated aloud, holding up a torn white slip of paper.

Rover had this aura about him that made you instantly trust him. Although I had only been on the same bus with him for twenty minutes, about two and a half months ago, I felt like I had known him for years. I dragged out my phone and made Delly read out the number while I keyed it in, hoping against hope that he would answer and still be the same cat I remembered him as. I crossed my fingers as the phone rang.

It rang ten times, but I kept the phone up to my ear, determined to talk to Rover if he was there at all. At long last, just after the tenth ring, a click came from the phone. "Hello, you've reached Narrows Industries; this is Rover speaking. Sorry for the inconvenience and wait. We only answer after ten rings because we feel that if you give up before then, you aren't worth our time. May we help you?"

"Rover?" I asked confusedly. "This is Aurora, Aurora Swann. You asked me to call you if I was ever in trouble…"

"Aurie!" he said cheerfully. I wondered how he'd picked up my somewhat unconventional nickname just like all the rest. "Awesome. K.K. and I were taking bets on how long you'd hold out before you had to call."

"How long did you bet?" I asked, unable to stop myself.

His voice turned gloomy. "I had faith in you; you looked like you were a real survivor. So I bet a year." Then he cheered up. "K.K. bet that you wouldn't make it three days, though. Sexist pig. So I'll be along to collect my Bells as soon as he arrives."

"Isn't three days closer to a month and a half than a year?" I said. "Wait, never mind. Don't answer that. I am seriously in trouble."

"Good. Give me a sec to grab a pen and paper, I'll be back." He was about to set the phone down when I stopped him.

"What is this place, anyway? You said Narrows Industries?"

I heard a rustling of paper. "Yes. We're sort of like a help call, like 911 – except we deal in much more than that. 911 is for immediate emergencies. NI is for long-term stuff, and all sorts of illegal biz. 911 won't help you if you're underage and pregnant or hooked on a totally illegal drug. Wait. Is that right? Do they help?" I heard him speaking off the phone and out to the room they were in, wherever he was. "Never mind. The point is, we are awesome."

"Right," I said slowly. "And this is completely confidential?"

"Of course it is. No matter what. Hey, if you're a criminal you've gotta depend on someone, right?" I was surprised at how close he had hit to my problem. "We won't help you in some cases, like if you're a murderer or whatever, but we swear complete secrecy. What's the problem? Are you pregnant?"

"No!" I said a little too loudly. "At least, I hope not," I added.

"Shucks. It's always fun when someone's pregnant. It's a lot easier than sending out an extraction team to rescue an innocent convict."

I glanced at Delly, who was perched on my bed. "Tough."

**A/N: Don't you just love the idea of Rover being employed in a special undercover help center with K.K. Slider? Actually, I don't, because he's described as someone who never stays tied down anywhere, but this is my story and I can do what I want. Let's just compromise and say that K.K. and the other guys we haven't met yet stand in for Rover when he's not currently employed.**


	22. Chapter 22

"Seriously?" asked Rover, incredulous. "Man, Aurora, when I assumed a kid like you would get into a dilemma, I hadn't expected that you would meet a childhood buddy who turned out to be a fugitive, who then ran away to leave a slutty waiter knowing your one biggest secret."

"Man, dude," said someone else on the speakerphone Rover had set up. "Way to go with the exposition." I heard the slap of a high-five.

"I don't know if Carolyn even wants to be found," I explained. "But I think Del and I should be given the chance of asking her. How long do you think it will take for you guys to find her and bring her back?"

"Long enough to prove she's innocent," answered Rover. My heart sank. "But," he added, "that might not be too long. We've heard rumors that her file is being reviewed again. Redd is busy hacking into the state police's database."

"Won't you get in trouble for that?" asked Delly, grabbing the phone from me. We had our line on speakerphone as well, so both of us could hear the conversation.

"Delly, right? Yeah, well, we might get in trouble, but it'll be Redd who takes the fall. He's basically the guy we ask to do all our illegal stuff. Seriously, he doesn't mind; he's running a scuzzy stolen goods store in the City. He gets thrown in jail every time the wind blows."

I remembered that Redd's shop was in the same shady area as Negative Zero. I snatched the phone back from Delly. "Hey – would you mind if Redd kept an eye on Damian? Remember, the guy who overheard all the stuff about Carolyn? He doesn't have to go out of his way to watch him, just if he sees him spreading the story around, could Redd call you?"

"Can do," replied Rover. "Let me put you on hold while I tell him." There was a click.

Delly took the phone back and switched to a different line. She started dialing before I grabbed her arm. She shook my hand off, but I said, "Hey, what're you doing?"

"I just want to call Labelle," she said, and smirked as my expression changed.

"What?"

"You know… she's a part of this now, she knows about Carolyn… she ought to know this new step of the plan, right?" With that, the phone started ringing and Delly crossed to the other side of the room before I could grab the device she was rapidly putting to her ear. It was still on speakerphone, so I could hear what each of them said. "Hi?"

"Hello," said Labelle. I could tell she was accustomed to this. "This is the clerk of the Falcon area GracieGrace. Would you like to order something over the phone? I have to cost you an extra charge for delivery, but I promise you it is a first-class transfer with absolutely no risk of in-transmission damage."

"Hi, Labelle!" Delly said cheerfully. "Reporting from Household Swann."

"Aurora?" Labelle said, dropping her voice. "You really shouldn't call me during work hours. I mean – I really do want to hear from you, but not when my salary depends on my performance, okay? And Gracie charges me extra for each personal phone call…"

I was blushing horribly, and I'm sure Labelle was too when Delly smirked and said, "No, actually it's Delly, but I'll totally let Aurora know how you feel about her."

Labelle's voice turned cold. "W-what do you mean?"

"Oh, please. 'I mean – I really do want to hear from you, Aurora –' Have you started calling her Aurie yet like the rest of us? Seriously." Delly shook her head.

"Del, I hate you," I hissed across the room.

"Anyway," she went on, becoming solemn. "We've found a few people who think they can help us track Carolyn down. We'll call you again when we've got some information, okay?"

_"Aurora _will call me," Labelle sneered. "I am not answering to you again, Delly. You're disgusting. There is nothing between Aurora and me. And there never will be. I don't know what she's been telling you about us, but we are just friends. Got it?"

I think Labelle hung up before Delly did, but either way they were both mad at each other. I was equally jubilant and heartbroken (Delly had gotten what she deserved for being so tactless; conversely, Labelle had said there would never be anything between us). But I didn't let my dejected emotions show on my face. Instead I smirked a little and said, "Well, Delly, I don't think you deserved any less than what you paid for," snatched the phone from her hand, and pushed her out of the room so I could cry in isolation.

I didn't get the chance. Rover came back on the line and said, "Aurie, I've alerted Redd. He's going to call and let me know if he hears Damian talking about the whole Carolyn situation. I personally doubt he'll hear it, as customers of Negative Zero rarely like to associate with his shop, but it's a good idea to have someone in the loop nearby anyway."

"Okay," I choked. "Fine."

"Are you okay?" he asked solemnly, worried.

"I'm good." Before he could assure me that 1) I was unquestionably not 'good', and 2) he was a member of a help organization and it was his duty to tell if people were 'good' or not, I hung up on him and sat down detachedly on my bed. Labelle was mad at me. I was sure of it. After all, she must assume from the insensitive way Delly had just thrown around our current status, I had been telling Delly every detail of the date. Possibly Labelle thought I didn't even want to be with her and I had asked Delly to call her for me.

I did want to be with her. With a shock, I realized how true it was. I had been fretting and worrying ever since I'd met her. Now, with it all laid out in front of me, I realized how simple it was. I was homosexual. I had to be, if I liked this girl so much. It totally explained why, while the rest of my friends were flirting and batting their eyelashes at the boys on the soccer team in high school, I had been admiring the way they tossed their hair and applied their makeup.

There was nothing wrong with me. I just didn't like boys. It was that simple.

The phone rang again, and I automatically snatched it up. "Seriously, Rover?" I complained when his voice greeted me. "I'm in the middle of an epiphany moment here."

"Yes, you're a lesbian."

It caught me off guard. "What?"

"Take it from me. K.K. says the rumors have been all over the place with you and that designer chick. They didn't know who you were, so they just call you the Raven, because of your hair color – but it wasn't too hard to figure out. Trust me. I've seen this a million times. One of our specialties is helping people out in the middle of a personal crisis."

I snorted a little, although I secretly couldn't help being amazed at his insightfulness. "Get with the program. I just figured that out a few minutes ago."

"When your friend called said designer chick while I was supposed to be alerting Redd to watch out for that slutty waiter dude?" Rover asked innocently.

I sighed, frustrated and annoyed. "Does everyone have to listen in to my private conversations?" I complained.

"Actually, yes. NI monitors your phone line while you call with an emergency, so we don't get left out of the loop on anything. Also, some people get too scared to tell us if they got a frightening phone message, so there's a plus. But if we think it's too personal, we hang up immediately – except me, ha ha. I'm sorry, but I can't just let a personal discussion go by without hearing about it. Call me a voyeur. I guess I'm just a stickler for gossip."

He hung up.


	23. Chapter 23

**Yeah, it's another one of these. We need to see how Carolyn's doing anyway.**

Carolyn had found herself in a predicament. A man had been following her. She supposed he wanted her reward money, but whatever he wanted from her, she made up her mind to have no part of it. All of the ways she'd lost a tail in the past came to mind. Firstly, she pulled the hat she'd worn as part of her boy disguise out of her pocket, ducked behind a building, looked around once furtively before yanking off her shirt. She fiddled with it until it was inside out, praying no one would see her.

She'd worked on the shirt for ages for this precise purpose. If you could change how you looked, it would be easy enough to lose whoever was following you, as they found you based on your appearance. The shirt was double-sided, white on one side, black on another. She was in the middle of flipping it to the black side. As a finishing touch, she crammed the hat over her head and set off again, altering not only her exterior but also her gait; her stride was suddenly longer and more masculine.

_Ha, strange man, find me now._

Carolyn had barely formed the challenge in her head when he stepped out from behind a newspaper he'd been "reading" while leaning against a bench. There were fewer people in this area, and it was starting to rain, so she finally decided that now was the safest time to do something that would surely call attention to herself. She started to run in the way that only deer can, as far away from the man she could.

Something occurred to her and she slowed. The man had been a human male, with light brown hair and a generic shape. A bit bigger than other men, maybe, but otherwise completely normal. The look on his face hadn't even been entirely unfriendly.

So why was Carolyn so afraid of him? The answer lay in her past. The man who had come at her turned-traitor unrelated sisters with a knife had been human. He had been male, obviously. And his face was a complete replica of the man standing far behind her.

But she'd shoved him out of a window! She considered all sorts of crazy things – cloning, identical twins, zombification – none of them seemed to fit. She didn't believe in zombies, and cloning was just silly. She even dismissed the most likely idea she'd come up with. There was no way identical twins could have completely identical scars, in all the same places. He even had a broken nose from where one of the other girls had punched him.

He didn't survive from the fall, she knew that for certain. The ambulance had declared him dead and carried him away on a stretcher. So what had happened?

Was Carolyn really a murderer – or was she completely innocent? One thing she knew now was that she couldn't possibly have committed the crime she was proclaimed to be on the run from. The man behind her was decidedly alive. Had someone wanted her in jail? Had someone wanted her to take the fall for them, even?

Carolyn wasn't sure, but she thought that by running away, she had found the only piece of solid evidence for her case since she had broken out of prison.


	24. Chapter 24

**Thank you so much, EmoEevee345, for all the reviews! It really made my day to expect to see four or five and then get hit in the face with _sixteen_ comments. And also, thanks for favoriting and following. Enjoy the chapter.**

The phone rang, and I clinically examined my state of being. Finding Carolyn had been a bit easier since Rover had gotten involved, but I had too many other things to deal with including finding the lost criminal. Tom Nook had started getting a bit snappy about me paying my rent; the police were cruising by my house every other night, and Labelle was constantly on my mind. Even if I tried to distract myself, I'd catch myself thinking about the taste of her lip gloss and the way she laughed a few seconds later. I hadn't had a restful night in two weeks what with the sound of an idling vehicle outside my window and the increasingly vivid dreams.

In conclusion, I was in no state to answer the phone. I could almost hear my muscles whine as I reached across the bed.

"Aurora! Are you there?"

"Hmm… Rover? Uh… yeah… did you find her?" I tried without success to keep my eyes open more than five seconds.

"No. But Redd says Damian called the cops today. They'll be there any second, Aurie, you've got to grab Del and go! We'll make sure there's a car waiting for you. Wait for us just outside the gate."

At the same moment, I heard a knock at the door and was instantly alert. Rover anticipated my frozen form. "Too late, they're here, right?"

"Yes," I whispered, and discovered indifferently that even when the police had discovered I was involved in hiding Carolyn, I could still think of Labelle. _Damn it._

I hung up on Rover and threw on my clothes. I was trembling and scared when I got to the door, but I pulled myself together. "Right, Aurora. Just act innocent, like you don't know a thing. Play welcoming host. It'll be fine."

I refused to think that I might even be in more danger than Carolyn, as she was innocent, but I wasn't. I had given shelter to a fugitive, whether she was innocent or not, and I would have to pay the price.

"Yes?" I trilled as I opened the door. Ugh. Completely the wrong tone. It just screamed "I'm guilty, come arrest me."

The same sleek black dog that had come to warn me about Carolyn was at the door, and he seemed much less comforting now. Delly was standing next to him in handcuffs. Her eyes were red and she was staring at the ground.

"Miss," the dog greeted me, just as before, except more menacing this time. My eyes kept straying to Delly – yes, she was crying. She must have never really considered what might happen if we were found out. I had. I had laid awake at nights straying between Labelle and Carolyn, and which required my immediate attention.

Thinking of Labelle calmed me. I smiled at the officer. "Hello again. Have they found that criminal yet?" Delly raised her head, amazed, as I gathered my shawl around me and leaned against the doorway.

The dog looked affronted, as if I were supposed to cry and confess. "About that. Could you step outside a moment?" I had no choice but to do so. "We have received evidence from an anonymous source that you are sheltering the Shadow, Miss Carrie King. Do you know anything about this?"

I shook my head, still thinking of Labelle, and put on what – I hoped – was a slightly puzzled face. "No, I don't. I have no idea why anyone would think I would do that." I appeared to notice Delly for the first time. "Uh, why is my friend in chains?"

"She is another suspect in aiding and abetting accused murderers. It is a serious crime, Miss Swann, so if you have any respect for the law, come clean now."

I shook my head. "Sir, I don't have any convicts hiding in my house."

"Then you won't argue when I propose to search it," he snarled suddenly, clipping handcuffs over my wrists and pushing me to join Delly at the bottom of my steps. He disappeared inside and left us alone with two other guards standing next to the police car.

There was silence for a second before Delly leaned over to whisper, "I didn't tell him."

"Good." More silence. Then, "He's going to find my diary."

"Did you put anything in it about –" Delly's eyes widened.

I shook my head, looking slightly amused. "Nope. Not my _diary_ diary. You see, I keep a very strict journal of my menstrual calendar, ever since my cousin got married and bled right through her _white wedding dress_ at the altar. The journal looks like any old diary and I leave it on my bedside table every night."

Delly had to stuff her handcuffed fingers into her mouth to stop giggling.

"What's even better is that I leave an emergency tampon in it as a bookmark."

Now we were bothgiggling. The police dog, with excellent timing, bounded down the front porch steps with the small blue book and a very smug and self-satisfied look on his face.

"Now we'll see where you're keeping that felon," he growled, and flipped the diary open.

There was silence again.

Now there was the sound of eyes popping and frozen horror.

_"Clotting…?"_

More silence.

"Okay. You two – into the car. You're under protective custody."

"But – innocent until proven guilty!" I argued as the two guards pushed me into the car.

The police dog held up his gloved hand, and I saw with growing despair the pair of earrings Carolyn had given to me. "Miss King was wearing these on the night she broke out of jail." He smirked and pushed the jewelry into his pocket, shunting Delly in front of him into the police car.


	25. Chapter 25

**Sorry for the delay! I've been kind of sick.**

The reason NI was called Narrows Industries was because the main headquarters used to have been a factory for pipes. When Rover's teammates moved in, they couldn't get the words on the big sign outside to scrape off, so they had just cheerfully changed the name of their emergency center and gone right with it.

Rover had told all this to me a few days ago. I didn't know why it was running through my head now, as I had much more important things to deal with, such as the fact that I was sitting in the middle of the police station's "containment unit." I'd been taken there by a very nice police dog who had told me confidentially he didn't believe I had helped Carolyn.

"Victor, the dog who drove you here," he confided as he led Delly and I through the police station to await our few days in protective custody before a trial (Rover had alerted me to the fact that if we were caught, he'd automatically charter a lawyer to our aid – it was in NI's engaged action mode, whatever that was), "is the only one here who is sure you did it. The rest of us don't think Miss King could have gotten all the way from Falcon to Umberton – that's where she was last sighted. It was in the news yesterday."

I tried not to show my reaction as I racked my brains. Had I read the news yesterday?

"Anyway, Victor's so sure you helped the Shadow that we have to keep you under arrest until all the red tape is sorted out. But it's not like you're going to be thrown in the same prison as all of the rapists and murderers. Nah, we'll just take you to the station's containment unit until everything is all organized. So don't worry."

The "containment unit" was a small whitewashed room with a door that locked from the outside. Of course all the glass in the police station was security glass, but I felt that if it weren't, the window in the containment unit wouldn't even bother being there. I slumped on one of the unit's cheap plastic chairs and tried not to look up at Delly.

Delly made a "well-what-can-we-do" face and sat down next to me. We remained like that until the phone in the small booth outside our cell rang.

The squirrel and I stared at each other as the ringing seemed to grow more frantic. But there was no way we could reach the pay phone, which I wasn't even aware _could _ring. I thought of all the possibilities if I could get my hands on the phone – I could call Rover, Labelle, my sister Holly. I could even call Alice and beg her to proclaim Carolyn's innocence again, but we'd found we couldn't do that alone. I could call Mari, if I knew her phone number, and I could tell her about our situation and how she needed to ask her friend to do the right thing.

But we could not _reach _the phone. It was outside our cell, no matter how much we slapped our palms in frustration on the security glass window. Victor, the mean dog who had been searching my house, happened along the hall at that very moment. He stared incredulously at the phone, which was still ringing, more and more insistently, before snatching up the receiver and putting it to his ear.

"Hello?" asked Victor, determinedly not looking at the two of us, as we were both hanging on his every word. Victor's expression changed. "What?" His white stripe down his black face made him look like a skunk, I noticed, in the way his face was contorting. He choked on a word for a second before swallowing it and instead unlocked our door, opening it just a little bit. "It's… for you."

I seized the receiver from his open paw and held it to my face. "Rover?"

"Aurora. Great."

That wasn't Rover's voice. I looked at the phone suspiciously. "Who is this?"

"Holly. What, have you already forgotten me? That dude – Rover, you called him, right? He called me as soon as he realized what jail you'd been put in."

"We're not in jail, we're just under arrest for the time being," I protested.

"And then he hooked me up to the closest phone to your cell," my sister went on, as though she hadn't even heard me. "Rover's a sweet guy. You should ask him out."

I nearly choked just like Victor. If only Holly knew how sharply my sexuality had twisted in the past three months… But I didn't say anything to her about that, as both Victor and Delly were trying to listen in on our conversation.

"Look, Aurie," she said, picking up on the damned nickname. Ever since Delly had said it, Labelle, Rover, Carolyn, and even my big sister had been calling me that. "I'm willing to overlook the fact that you ran away from home if you let me help you. All right?"

I let out an irritated breath. "What kind of helping? You're not going to help me break out of here, right?"

"If you need it, I'm game. But that's not the kind of help I was thinking of. Look, I can make phone calls, I can talk to Mom and Dad about this, I can call Labelle –"

What was it with everybody knowing about this all of a sudden?

"– I can probably break you out _if _you wanted it, but then the cops would hunt you down just like that scary killer The Shadow. I can search for phone numbers. Anything you need."

Epiphany moment. "Can you get a phone book? I don't know what her last name is, but I really need you to call a cat named Mari. She's got one child –" I tried to remember what Labelle had told me that night – "named Aiden, and her significant other is called Damian. I think she lives near the Falcon Area City." I crossed my fingers as I waited.

I heard the sound of pages rustling. "There's one Mari RaChase. Her species is listed next to the name, er, yeah, it says "black tabby," which I assume is a cat. It does say she has one child and has a career in music."

Didn't Labelle say that music was pretty much Mari's life? "That would be her," I said after a moment. "Can you call her? Ask her if she knows a fox named either Alexandria or Alice Graham. If she says no, hang up; if she says yes, then tell her this…"

I knew I could trust my sister not to tell anyone, yet I made her promise again and again just because no one is infallible. I said most of it in a whisper so that Victor wouldn't hear me, but I wasn't sure if the cell was bugged or not. Basically, I was staking everything on one roll of the dice. "…and so, you need to convince her to tell Alice to tell the police that Carolyn is innocent. It might not do anything to stop them chasing Carolyn, but at least it might get them reviewing the Shadow's file again."

"Got it," was Holly's only comment, and then she hung up.

I kept my fingers crossed as I passed the phone back to Victor.


	26. Chapter 26

**Another third-person chapter. (Warning. If you don't like character death, stop reading here.)**

Labelle usually stayed for a while at her shop after GracieGrace had closed, drifting through the racks and letting her fingers slide through the fabrics and soft silken flapper dresses up near the door. She normally would wander throughout the store, trying on dresses and having the whole world to herself for at least twenty minutes before she left the City and went home.

_Normally._

Today, she had gone home early, deep in thought about Aurora's predicament. Rover had called her and introduced himself about two hours ago, explaining what that creep Damian had done, and ending with the revelation that Aurora was stuck in jail for the time being. Labelle usually wasn't so preoccupied with a girl, but this was something else entirely. Aurora had gone from more than a potential girlfriend – she was a friend. And Labelle had never had a friend go to prison before, even if it was just a suspected crime.

She sat alone in the tiny apartment she had bought after she'd run away from the Able family, her sisters. Ran away. It brought on a wry smile; Rover had mentioned something about Aurora originally being a runaway as well to Falcon when he had called, and Aurora had said Carolyn had run away from her and Delly. Then her smile faltered. She recalled how anxious Aurora had been during the first few weeks Carolyn was gone, and suddenly understood that that must have been the state of her poor sister Sable, having to manage a tiny country shop alone, when she herself, Labelle, had run away to be part of Gracie's shop.

It brought on a boiling round of guilt and regret.

Poor Sable. The baby of the family, Mabel, hadn't even been old enough to understand when Labelle had decided to run away, so her older sibling had had to manage a secondhand clothing store all on her own – with minimal help from her boyfriend Tom Nook, of course. Another wave of guilt crashed through Labelle. She had thrown away the tearstained letter from Sable saying her and Tom had broken up after barely glancing at the parchment.

All she could do was reach numbly out to the phone on her bedside table and begin to dial. Gracie didn't have to know. This wasn't during work hours or anything – it wasn't like calling her family was going to interrupt her employment at GracieGrace. Right?

She dialed the last two numbers with shaking hands and became aware that her eyes were burning with tears. She wished she'd known better. Her sisters had loved her and she had thrown it all away, ripping the letters they sent in half. If Labelle had only remembered that being a famous fashion designer was lower on the list than family…

There was a click as the ringing of the phone stopped. An exhausted voice dripping with pain and grief answered, "H-hello?"

"Sable?"

"Yes. Who's this?" The voice was so agonized Labelle could only wonder what had caused her sister's terrible pain.

"Um… your sister. Labelle."

The voice suddenly blazed with hatred. "I don't have a sister."

Labelle jerked away from the phone, the tears finally welling up. "Y-yes you do. E-even if you don't c-count me, there's still Mabel, right? Sabe, I'm so, so sorry for everything I did and every year I stayed away," she burst out. But Sable was in the middle of answering her first question, crying the words with a mixture of grief and loathing.

"No thanks to you, Mabel d-died last night. If she had been in better care, if we'd maybe had a _relative _or someone who got paid _tons _of money every day or ever even BOTHERED to answer the phone or look at the letters pleading for someone to pay for her disease, if maybe _someone cared _about our family at all – you didn't even answer the letter I wrote saying that Tom and I had broken up! I was asking for you to come home because I needed another set of paws around the place! But NO! Somebody who doesn't care whether her baby sister lives or d-dies thinks that fashion and fame is more important than family!"

Everything went numb.

"M-Mabel's… dead?" Labelle whispered. "How?"

"Disease," spat Sable. "We didn't have enough money to pay for fixing it or even diagnosing it. I know you used to send checks once in a while, but that was a long time ago! Label" – calling her by her birth name – "if you'd just come home, and helped, we would have made enough cash to at least know what caused her death."

A click resounded throughout the room, marking the end of their conversation; as Labelle stared unseeingly at the wall, gasping for breath and reaching out for a younger sister who was no longer there.

**:((((((**

**Don't worry. There will be more cheerful things in later chapters. First Labelle has to convince her uptight boss to let her take a family-emergency vacation to Mabel's funeral (speaking of, I may have spelled it "Mable" in earlier chapters... PM me and I'll fix it). :)**

**Oh, and we will see more of Carolyn, I promise.**


	27. Chapter 27

**Back to Aurora! And the next chapter will be one about Carolyn. There will be a whole bunch of flip-flopping around between point of views for the foreseeable future.**

**SoulPieces: There will be more about Labelle's family later, but I promise it will all turn out okay. :) I usually don't show much reaction to the things I write while I write them, but if I did, I would cry during that last chapter.**

**Kyler709: Aww, thank you! :D**

We'd discovered why there was a phone booth outside our cell. (Despite what the police dogs called it, it was a cell.) It was because each of us was allowed to make one phone call per day. I tried repeatedly to get Labelle while Delly called Rover to update him about our situation, but for some odd reason, the hedgehog wasn't picking up. Once or twice Gracie answered with a frosty "She isn't here. Stop calling."

It had been three days before Victor and Lane (that was the name of the dog who had taken us to our cell in the first place) came to get us. "Nothing yet," reported Lane cheerfully. "By now we would have put you under house arrest, just because you're suspected in aiding Carrie King, but as both of you live alone and wouldn't have anyone to watch you, we're going to take you to one of the apartments above the station. Sometimes our officers crash there when they've been out all night and are really tired."

He unlocked the doors as Victor stood by warily. Delly and I followed Lane as he guided us up a set of stairs. "You'll just have to share with another animal in a similar situation," Lane told us. Suddenly, my brain filled with images of sharing a room with _real _murderers and rapists, ones who had almost convinced the cops they were innocent.

Lane pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and flipped through them until he found a heavy iron screw. Placing it into a hole where the doorknob should have been, he twisted the knob and pulled the door open. "We'll come and get you if we find any evidence either way for or against your case." He pushed Delly and me into the room, shutting the door firmly behind us. We could hear the sound of gears turning in the door as Lane locked it.

The apartment we were sharing was pretty plain. There was a small kitchen, a bathroom, and three beds, but it was more than we had had for three days. "I call top bunk," Delly instructed, scrambling up the ladder – and disturbing the occupant of her chosen bed.

_"Alice?"_

I hurried over to look. There she was, the brown fox, still wearing the rumpled GracieGrace shirt. "God, Alice, how'd you get here?"

Her face darkened a little. "You're welcome."

It took me a second to get it. "You told the police that Carolyn is innocent?"

She nodded a little. "No thanks to you. Mari called me with some bullshit about how it was my 'duty' to protect my 'friend' – looks like she had no idea I was one of the girls who framed little Carrie in the first place." Before either Delly or I could voice the fact that I actually had, by proxy, been the one who caused her change of heart; she continued on, "Course, I obviously took her up on that, but only 'cause she's a real friend. I called the police and told them everything I knew – how Carrie was defending us from that man one of the girls slept with. How she shoved him out the window when he came at her with a knife. But the police, that really ratty one Victor in particular, say they need to keep me in 'protective custody' because I admitted to helping Carrie."

Delly and I groaned in unison, and Alice took a short bow.

"They came up here last night to let me know they're willing to have a retrial, but they need to find not only Carolyn but also a real piece of solid evidence before they can get into the court. I said to them why not just shove the whole case up your ass and let Carrie go free, but they insisted."

I shook my head a little in frustration. "Well, at least they're willing for another appeal."

Alice nodded and finally cracked a smile. "You can count on me," she allowed. "I guess I finally realized that back in the days Carrie and I were roaming the streets that she had been my one friend in the world. Despite the fact that I lied to her. I guess that was my fault anyway." She stretched out on the top bunk. "I got nothin' better to do than insist she was innocent, so I promise I'll vouch for her until the end."

"Thank you," Delly said sincerely. I nodded.

"Why do they need a solid piece of evidence?" I complained grouchily an hour later while Delly and I unclogged the toilet for the tenth time (according to Alice, who had been here longer). "Why can't they just accept that Carolyn is innocent, and then we can all go home?"

Delly made a face. "I don't know. I guess the rules are different for retrials, like you can't have as many as you want."

We resumed working.

It was a week later, with frequent guards posted around our door now that there was more than one prisoner in the police station's apartment, that we finally heard news…


	28. Chapter 28

**Carolyn's POV. Thank you for reviewing again, EmoEevee345! Don't worry, the next chapter is about Aurora and Delly again, so the cliffhanger isn't for very long.**

**On an aside note, I might not post again for a little while.**

Umberton. Carolyn never would have gotten there if it wasn't for Owen. Owen – she couldn't describe him; he was the man who had supposedly tried to murder her friends. It turned out his story was quite different from Carolyn's view of the situation, and he'd been taken aback when she demanded of him why he had attempted to kill the other girls. She'd thought he was just a psycho, but upon talking to him…

"I'd gotten drunk," he said. "I always used to go out to the bar with a couple of my friends, but we were all too inebriated at the time to drive home. I guess I started looking for a girl I could sleep with for a place to crash, and your friend offered it. I woke up with a blinding headache and found her going through my trousers, looking for money. She threatened me and tried to steal my wallet – what could I do? I yanked out my pocketknife and pointed it toward her. I had no intention of hurting her, but then you burst in, saw what was going on and shoved me out the window."

"You – but I was put in jail for murdering you! D-did they f-find a body or something to make them think it was you?"

"They actually found me. I was out cold on the sidewalk with my nose broken and one ligament torn. My hangover was too strong for me to yell out or move or anything – so when the ambulance came to get me, I think they originally thought I was dead. I was pushed into so many different hospitals and even mortuaries while they checked me out that soon they lost track of who I was. I recovered and when I saw you on the news, knowing it wasn't your fault, I searched everywhere for you so I could help you.

"I suppose I could have gone to the police, but I don't think they'd have believed me, as they had the Carrie King file closed and locked with the testimony of at least six girls against your case. Now, together, we can go and prove them wrong." Owen held out a hand at this point. "Are you with me?"

Carolyn thought it over and finally shook his hand. She'd spent so long being a fugitive that she was fairly sure of her ability to detect lying. It was why she had trusted Aurora right from the start. "All right."

Owen had paid for bus tickets and they had traveled all the way across the state before they reached Umberton, a town slightly larger than Falcon with more places to hide. The human resourcefully checked them into a hotel under the names Catherine and Oliver Shade (referring, of course, to the Shadow, the term for Carolyn in the underworld).

Carolyn had had one slightly tricky moment where she thought a policeman had seen her, and shortly after the fact that she was in Umberton appeared in newspapers. Yet Owen urged her not to panic – Umberton was close to Bexville, the town that proudly held the main police station in the state. (It was, coincidentally, the same one that was currently holding Aurora, Delly, and Alice.) Owen didn't intend to go back to jail, he intended to get the police to listen to him. And that wasn't going to happen if they were caught in Umberton. They had to go straight to the front desk in the Bexville station and demand the officers' attention.

Personally, Carolyn wasn't sure if it was going to work, but the fact was she hadn't murdered Owen Murkley, not by a long shot. The police would have to listen. The problem was that she hadn't just been filed with manslaughter, she'd gotten burglary, resisting arrest, and one incident of arson – she hadn't been anywhere near the burning building, but the police had tacked it onto her list because it was simpler than chasing another villain. The point was that she probably wasn't going to be sent free even if she was proved innocent in the case of Owen.

They would depart for Bexville in the morning, Owen had assured her, so she shouldn't unpack anything that would take a lot of trouble. Carolyn had just looked at him and made a face. He had dumped all of their "things" off the bridge while they were doubling back from Cel Lake, saying that it would lead the police off their trail while they traveled to Bexville.

Carolyn occasionally doubted his sanity.

But he was all she had at the moment, and her best chance at proving her innocence. She could only hope he would be more trustworthy than Alice had been. Now she stared at the dreary ceiling of the hotel Owen had checked into, listening to the human's snores and wondering if this was a lucky break for her, or if it was the worst mistake of her life.


	29. Chapter 29

**Kyler709****: Thanks for your input, but first Labelle has to stop grieving for Mabel. Don't worry, there will be more Aurora/Labelle goodness once their whole messed-up situation resolves itself! :)**

**Aurora's POV again. Hopefully it'll stay stable for a few more chapters before going back to Labelle's point of view.**

6:00 p.m.

Delly and I were fixated on the events happening outside our small guarded apartment. Alice had one of her fox ears pressed against the crack at the bottom of the door, and my best friend and I were attentively peering through the tiny keyhole that the iron key we'd been locked in with fit to. Because standing not twenty feet from our little room was Carolyn King.

She and a man neither of us had seen before were standing at the station's front desk. The human had a tight hold on her hoof, something causing us to fear he'd caught her and was bringing her in; but Alice, who had good hearing, was shaking her head. "He sounds like he's with her. He's defending her, for some reason! And… and he's trying to get the police to listen to him, I can't hear what he's saying now."

Delly succeeded in stealing the peephole from me, so I dropped down to listen at the crack in the bottom of the door with Alice. I thought I heard the human's faint voice: "…can't… innocent… I'm not…" It was hard to hear more than a few words at a time. I strained my ears, frustrated that I couldn't hear more.

Lane's voice: "Sir… proof… lock-up…"

"That police dog is asking if the human has a solid chunk of proof that Carolyn is innocent," translated Alice in a whisper.

"Murkley… files… not dead…"

"Oh, my God!" Delly suddenly said. "He's Owen Murkley!"

I looked at her quizzically, still trying to listen. "Who's Owen Murkley? And hush, I'm trying to hear what they're saying."

"Remember, Rover said that Redd was hacking into the police department's files? Rover sent me a copy. Owen Murkley is the guy Carolyn supposedly killed! But he must not be dead, or he wouldn't be here!"

"Maybe it's his son," I speculated, still trying to listen.

"File… dead… case… reopened, but… have no… fake…"

"He's saying that the file said Murkley was dead, but although the case was reopened they still have no proof that the guy isn't just using a fake name and driver's license," Alice translated, straining her ears harder than ever.

"Blood… don't mind…"

"Owen's willing to take a blood test; he doesn't mind," Alice said in a whisper.

Delly looked up, and I snatched the opportunity and grabbed the peephole back. Lane was examining Owen Murkley's ID, at least that was what I assumed as I couldn't see from this distance; as Carolyn clung to the human's arm looking worried. Delly said, "Well, that's it, isn't it? If Owen takes a blood test and it turns out that he's the real Murkley, _and_ both him and Alice argue for Carolyn's sake, then we win, right? Carolyn goes free."

"And we go free too," I reminded her. I had suddenly remembered halfway through the last night that I might have left a milk carton out on the table back at home. If that was true, then it had already gone bad, and if I didn't immediately get home, my entire house would start to stink slowly through. On the upside, Tom Nook wouldn't bother anymore threatening to kick me out and take the property back.

"That's right. Unless Carolyn's done something worse while she's been on the run. In which case this'll stretch out for another few months," chimed in the pessimistic Alice. "Now shush. They're leading Murkley away."

I peered through my peephole to see that she was right. And Carolyn was being pulled by Victor through a doorway that had "Holding Cells" inscribed on the frame. "I don't understand. Is that good?"

"I assume they're taking Carolyn to the cells for the night while they sort out the deal with Murkley," Delly told me. "If all goes well, we'll be stuck here for another week, at least."

I suddenly slumped onto my bunk, too tired to do anything more. I found that I missed the rhythm of Labelle's voice, and the way she shyly fidgeted. Prison life wasn't for me – even though I wasn't actually in prison, just a guarded room with a small kitchen and bathroom.

I tried to visualize Labelle again and wondered once more where she had gone. Last time I had attempted to call her with my one call per day (as we weren't actually in jail and Lane was nice enough to supply that privilege), Gracie had answered with a stormy "She's not here now. Stop calling! She doesn't want to talk to you." Which I hadn't considered very polite or at all necessary.

The scratch on my face, my only souvenir from Labelle's kiss, had almost fully healed by now; something that vaguely annoyed me. I may not have made this clear, but I really, really missed Labelle, something that hadn't registered until I began thinking about her. And now I couldn't stop. Damn it.

"Aurora?"

I jerked out of my trance. "Uh – what?"

"I asked if you wanted to make dinner tonight." The small kitchen we had supplied a minor amount of supplies for at least two meals a day for each of us. I nodded slightly, leapt off my bed, and began to make my way to the kitchen; engrossed in the information about Carolyn I had just processed, and also with the figure of a certain hedgehog.


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30! I swear, I would never have gotten to the three-times-ten if it weren't for my awesome readers. Thank all of you guys so much :D and remember to review! Your input is always good to hear.**

Okay, okay. Maybe I was being a bit obsessive of my certain hedgehog while there were still much more serious proceedings to be dealt with. I just _had _to know where she was, and why she wasn't answering her phone at GracieGrace. While most of my mind was devoted entirely to what would later go down as "The Events of the Shadow", there was still a remote corner of my brain that was infatuated with my personal life. Sometimes in breaks of the conversation, I would pause and suddenly be assaulted out of the blue with the scent of vanilla, which I had come to associate as a trace of the perfume she wore. And all of a sudden, I found myself wishing I had met Labelle under less severe circumstances, ones that didn't end with me thrown in prison, ones that involved us maybe going out on a few more dates.

Delly was taking the situation well. Sometimes I would hear her slightly sobbing at night, but that was only to be expected. After all, she had been a normal squirrel until I had come into her life and sealed our friendship with a fresh batch of blueberry pancakes. Maybe, I thought, if I hadn't eaten those pancakes, if I had politely declined, we would never have gotten into this.

Then again, I would never have met my best friend, never have entered the adventure of a lifetime, maybe not ever have met Labelle. And just as I thought that sentence, my mind was on Labelle again. _Damn _it.

"…four days already," Delly was saying as I pulled my mind away from the hedgehog.

"I know. Honestly. It doesn't take four days to do a blood test."

Alice and Delly were having a conversation under my train of thought. I continued to act as though I was listening as Delly continued, "What do you think is going on? I mean, we haven't seen more than a glimpse of activity since that Murkley guy showed up. And Lane told us he would let us know if anything big was found out. Well, they haven't done that."

Suddenly Alice thumped the mattress, hard, in anger. "Oh, shit!"

"What?" I pulled out of my stupor, awakened by her abrupt oath.

"I told that dude that Murkley came at Carrie with a knife and yelled at her and tried to kill her! It actually didn't happen that way, I was just trying to make a case for Carolyn! Owen Murkley was waving the knife, true, but in his own self-defense." Alice hurriedly explained how the girl Owen had gone home with had tried to mug him the next morning. "I bet he told the police how it really happened. Now they've got two conflicting alibis! I am SUCH an idiot."

Delly cursed as well. I glanced at Delly for a second after the smoke had cleared, impressed that she knew so many words, before turning back to Alice. "It's probably okay, Al. All you have to do is just ask to talk to the police, tell them you exaggerated what happened, and… it'll be another month in here while they sort out whether you're lying this time or not. Yeah. I'm sure that'll go well." I sank back down, gloomy.

"If you can't be helpful, Aurora, then don't talk," snapped Delly unexpectedly.

I looked at her again, this time less impressed. Alice cut in before I could retort: "Look, they're police. I guess they've got a lot more experience knowing if someone's exaggerating events or not. And they'll figure out what to do in the end – Owen's obviously alive right now, if that's really him – so Carolyn can't have murdered him. Anyway… I guess it's because of the conflicting alibis that they haven't let us know of the news yet."

Perfectly on cue, Lane knocked on the door to warn us and we heard the (now familiar) clunk of the key in the door. "Bad news and good news, girls," he warned us. "What do you want to hear first?"

"Bad news," Delly said, still in an irritated mood. "That way the good news will take the edge off of things."

"Right. Well, the bad news is that your friend" – he addressed this to Alice – "Carrie King, says she feels really sick. We don't have a doctor in at the moment. But that means that the retrial we were going to have can't take place until we find out if she's healthy enough to go to court. But the good news is, Owen Murkley – do you know who that is? – is actually alive, due to a mistake the hospital handling him made. They thought he was dead and he wasn't."

"So does that mean that the Shadow is innocent?" I interjected. We'd all been careful to refer to her impersonally while the police were listening, otherwise it would seem like we actually knew her and had protected her. "I mean, the guy she supposedly murdered isn't dead. So shouldn't that be enough without a retrial?"

"Well, in an ordinary case, that would be true," Lane told us. "But at the moment, we really aren't sure what happened. We've got two conflicting alibis" – here Alice sank against the wall, her head in her hands – "and we don't know whether Owen Murkley should go to jail too for attempted murder or not. Carrie King seems to be innocent, for the moment. However, there is a whole bunch of paperwork we need to get done before anyone can make a decision."

After Lane had bade us goodbye and left, I looked at Alice. (Delly still seemed too moody to interact with.) "Of course, we know exactly what happened, don't we. Carolyn fell in with the wrong crowd, then tried to protect her friends from a man who was trying to protect himself. Everyone's innocent. So why can't they just go free? Why can't the stupid world just make sense?" I said the last few words in a heartbroken voice that sounded more like I was at least seven. Alice reached out her arms and took me in a hug for a second.

"Because the stupid world is stupid," she explained, as if that solved anything.


	31. Chapter 31

**Thanks for favoriting and reviewing again, ****Eptastic Girl****! Don't worry, they won't be stuck in the jail for long. In fact, the current ark is almost at a close, because we really need to see what's going on with Labelle. The next chapter will be about Aurora and Delly finally returning home... but I shouldn't say too much.**

The trial. It was finally happening.

I didn't remember most of it, but I did remember the highlights – Carolyn really was sick. The most dramatic moment was right before the jury reached a decision, where she bolted for the door, her hands locked over her mouth. I seem to remember something about Victor demanding her to pay for his ruined uniform. But anyway, the poor girl was miserable and coughing during the whole trial. Part of me wished that Delly hadn't insisted we go ahead with the formalities even before Carolyn got better, and the other part of me couldn't help thinking that we should just get it over with, despite her illness.

But before the jury reached a decision, we have to back up. Carolyn was marched into the room looking queasy and terrified. Owen Murkley sat beside her, whispering reassurances into her stubbly deer fur. Delly and I were adamant that we should be present for the trial, and Alice was there regardless, because she was arguing as a witness for Carolyn. And Rover called and yelled at the judge until he was allowed to be present via webcam. Even my sister, Holly, had sneakily volunteered to be part of the jury.

During the whole experience, Delly was clutching my wrist tighter than I thought a squirrel possibly could. I took this chance to look around at everyone. Over there was Rover, who, with his hard work and attempts to protect Carolyn, had earned his place as a friend. Holly, sitting on the third row of the jury's bench, was staring at the proceedings in front of her, looking bored. She had always been my big sister; she had taught me everything…

I looked at Carolyn. She used to be my little Carrie King, my friend, my confidant. The first day of preschool, our teacher in Springspoon, Mrs. Plumrich, had made us all stand up and say our names. When it was my turn, I was so scared to talk in front of anyone in my class that I had just stood there trembling. But I looked across the room, and there was a little deer in a tiny red plaid dress and sneakers, and she was smiling at me, in an innocent, childish, optimistic way. From that point on, we had promised that we would always, always be best friends.

I had felt so betrayed when she moved on from me in second grade. But now that I looked at her, I realized that if she had stayed my friend and not fallen into the bad crowd, I would never have run away from home. I would never have come to Falcon. And I never, ever would have met the apprehensive, skittish squirrel clamped to her chair next to me.

Delly. The pancakes we'd eaten that day had seemed so trivial, but now I realized that they were much more than that. They had begun one of the best friendships I'd ever had.

I was concentrating so hard on remembering what each of the friends I had in this enormous courtroom full of the unforgiving, cold faces, ones that believed Carolyn was a ruthless killer; that I hadn't heard the verdict. But just as I heard the sound of Carolyn's retching onto Victor's jacket, Delly let loose a high-pitched scream that made me start.

"What? What happened?" I asked, panicking. I believed that her squeal was a scream of fury for a minute.

"We won! Aurie, we won! She was declared innocent!" she yelled, and in that moment I forgave her for snapping at me the other day. She let another squeal cut the air as she flung her arms around me, and I looked across the courtroom – Carolyn and Owen were hugging too, and more than that. I raised my eyebrows and turned away.

"Are you sure you should be kissing a sick person?" I heard Alice asking Owen jokingly, and in a flash I recalled that Carolyn _had_ just thrown up all over Victor. Then again, she might have induced it because of Victor's terminal grouchiness. I grinned, unable to help myself, as I moved through the suddenly-crowded room to Rover's webcam.

"Hello," he said casually, glancing up at his camera. "Good job."

"I didn't do anything."

"Yeah, you did. I called Carolyn while she was in her own cell. She told me that if you hadn't shown her such optimism and confidence and affection, the first thing she would have done upon running away was commit suicide. If you think about Alice's first behavior, you can't blame her. Carolyn said herself that she had nothing left to live for now that Alice had betrayed her just like the rest." Rover returned to whatever he was working on, leaving me to stand there, feeling a lot happier than I had in weeks.

Holly tapped me on the shoulder. "You coming? The officials don't like it when you loiter in their courthouse."

"Where are we going?" She was pulling me out the door and towards a car, which I had no intention of boarding. "I'm not coming home with you, if that's what you're thinking. I'm an adult now and can live on my own."

Holly shook her head. "I'm driving you back to Falcon." She signaled to my friends, who were straggling behind. "They can come too, if they hurry."

"I don't need to go," Alice declined. "I live in Beryl, not Falcon. I'll catch a taxi." She flashed a grin at Carolyn, who still looked unwell. "Good thing you were never carsick. See ya."

"Can I come too?" said Owen as Carolyn climbed into Holly's car. He had had his arm around her for most of the trial, and I had the feeling that it was going to be there for a while yet. "I'd like to see if there are any houses open in Falcon. It sounds nice."

So Delly, Owen, Carolyn, and I boarded Holly's black car and settled down, Carolyn merging between outstandingly happy for her victory and nauseous discomfort. As we set off, I showed her where her nausea point was on her wrist, and she began to look better as Holly pulled onto the highway.

I was so happy. It seemed as if all loose ends were tied up, and nothing could go wrong! We were finally, finally going home! Carolyn would never have to hide anymore!

And then an even better thought struck me:

Labelle.

**So the Carolyn ark is finally over. I promise, she's not leaving, but her criminal days are over and Aurora can focus on other things - specifically, a certain hedgehog. There will be more on Labelle's family in the next chapter, if all goes well. :) Thank you all for staying with the story for as long as it has run!**


	32. Chapter 32

**EmoEevie345****: Sorry that you can't log in. Thank you for the reviews, and I hope your phone works soon! :(**

**Also, I keep forgetting to label the chapters that have bad language in them. My apologies. This one has a few bits of language in it, but I wouldn't recommend skipping; it's got a lot of important information for this new ark.**

Home!

It seemed so… homey! I hadn't lived there for more than a few months, but returning to it now felt like I'd lived there all my life. Carolyn, who was just getting over her cold with the help of the flu medicine Delly and I were taking turns buying at Tom Nook's, had miraculously managed to escape infecting Owen, despite their love-fest at the courthouse. Both of them took our offers to stay at my house gladly.

The only problem during the first few days was the bed issue. There just wasn't enough room for Delly, who had apparently forgot to pay the last few month's rent on her house and had been finally kicked out by Tom Nook; Carolyn, Owen, and I. We finally figured it out when Delly accidentally discovered a hidden guest bedroom through a secret door in the pantry. It was quite hilarious watching all four of us wriggle our way through the tiny door into the bedroom that most certainly hadn't been there before.

Delly and Carolyn got the guest bedroom, as they were both thin and able to wriggle through the door; although for the first night Delly refused to sleep in the same bed as Carolyn, who was still getting over whatever kind of virus she had caught. Owen slept on the couch downstairs, and I remained in my own bed. I could vividly remember the first night I had slept in my bed: no friends, homesick, tired, a little scared.

Now: squeezed into a house with four people, too busy a schedule to be homesick, still tired, and still celebrating the outcome of Carolyn's trial. One out of four wasn't bad. But there was still one last loose end to tie up before I relaxed in the so-called privacy of my house long enough to try to call Labelle, namely, thus:

I cornered Carolyn in the pantry one morning, determined to have some squealing girly talk. "So what's the deal with Owen" was the first inquiry out of my mouth.

She was very practical about it, something I hadn't anticipated. "Oh, he's Owen. I wasn't so sure about him at first, but after a while we just got used to each other's company." She shrugged. I had the feeling that something in timid Carolyn had changed since she had run away.

"Are you a little concerned that the police think you murdered him?"

"The official term for it was manslaughter, you know." This wasn't working at all. I didn't want to talk about Carolyn's criminal record – I wanted her to put that behind her. There was one brief problem with that, though. It involved a very surly police dog, an inconvenient car alarm, and one new neighbor.

Victor had been so disgusted with the outcome that he had ordered a few of his manpower to circle our house every few nights, just to make sure "that no good rotten criminal isn't causing trouble." He had been so sure that Carolyn was guilty despite the fact that Owen Murkley was plainly alive, he even rigged an annoying car alarm to go off at unpredictable times during every few nights to test Carolyn's temper. At least, Delly was certain that Victor was the one behind it; he had held a grudge against Carolyn ever since she had marched up to the dog and asked firmly for her earrings back.

Then there was the new neighbor, a rhino named Candice. She was a little nosy and quite annoying. When she came to us asking loudly about the car alarm and the police going by every night, we had no real choice but to tell her that we had been taken into custody for a short while under a misunderstanding – but ever since, Candice had poked her rhino head into the house at least twice a day, chattering on with inquisitive questions about what it was like in jail. It made it very hard to forget the whole unpleasant incident.

"But anyway, speaking of significant others," Carolyn said, getting this smile on her face I knew well, and I groaned with anticipation – "How's Labelle doing?"

I actually hadn't tried to call her yet, but I didn't have high hopes. Gracie had been the only one who answered when I called in jail, and she had said that Labelle wasn't there. But I didn't know why she'd leave on such short notice. I couldn't help feeling depressed and illegitimately believing she had run off because of me.

"She's fine," I said vaguely, but when Carolyn's face dropped, I added, "Really. I don't think she'd just quit her job without warning – she was willing to give her family up for it. She'll be back." _I hope._ "I'll go into GracieGrace tomorrow."

"Can I come?" said Carolyn immediately. She had never been to a GracieGrace except the one time her mean friends made her steal from there. She had always wanted to go and just have a girl's day out, but Delly was preoccupied and I had been trying to settle back into a routine, too uneasy to leave my home.

"I guess," I said, brightening a little. "You can try on this fantastic dress I saw last time I was there. It would look way better on you than on me." We began to have the girl-chatter I had longed for, and soon my day felt fulfilled.

Owen came into the pantry after a while. "If you women can stop dissecting every word in the dictionary, syllable by syllable, some of us would like to get to the food storage."

Carolyn and I pelted him with grapes, kissed him on the cheek (obviously not me, just Carolyn) and left together, closing the door on Owen. We came into the rest of the kitchen to find Delly sitting at the table, staring at the obituary page in the newspaper. Carolyn sat down and pulled the cereal toward her while I sat next to my other best friend.

"You're so morbid," I commented, observing her combing of the obituary.

"It's not that," she murmured, not moving her mouth. "Look."

She pointed. _Mabel Able, hedgehog, 19 approximate years of age. Survived by her sisters, Sable and Labelle Able._

I gasped aloud. "Oh, shit." I didn't often curse, but this was the time to do so. This was where Labelle had disappeared to. Gracie must have let her go because this was such a severe family emergency.

"Honey, it's not very polite to say the S word," Candice reproved, coming in through the front door like she lived here. She didn't approve of three girls and one boy staying in one house together, but that wasn't going to change soon either. I ignored her until the rhino started to pour herself a bowl of cereal – our cereal.

"Honey, it's not very polite to stroll around like you own the place and take the cereal of a family you don't even know," murmured Carolyn, still looking at the obituary with Delly. Gone was the stuttering mouse-deer I knew. She'd evolved since she met Owen. It was kind of nice, but unexpected. If anyone was going to say that line, I'd assume it was going to be Delly.

Delly, on the other hand, was a bit more violent. "You keep your filthy paws off _our_ food! Honestly, it's just like Carolyn said, you barely know us. What gives you the fucking right to take our cereal?"

Delly hadn't been in a good mood lately.

"Language!" chided Candice. "You know," she said thoughtfully, pouring herself a bowl of our cereal, "it's odd. A boy named Blathers in the museum the other day said I shouldn't climb on the fossils, but I don't see what gives him the right to tell me what to do."

Carolyn's eyes were suddenly huge, and a smirk crossed her face. "No way. You even _touch _Blathers' fossils, you're dead. And you climbed on them… what did you do when he asked you to get off?"

"Don't encourage her," I mouthed at Carolyn. I watched as Candice took the last of our milk, but with the devastating news on the Able family, I didn't have the heart to restrain her.

"Well, of course I told him where to stick his precious fossils," said Candice, looking affronted. She took my favorite spoon out of the drawer.

"And she tells us 'language'," muttered Delly.

Owen came out from the pantry as Candice continued to speak. "You know," she said, spooning cereal into her mouth and pulling the newspaper right out from under Delly's paw, "I don't really understand why some people tell me what to do."

"Neither do I. It obviously doesn't get you anywhere," said Carolyn nastily. The nastiness was definitely called for. Candice had been rude and intrusive with us before, but she never outright came into our house and ignored us.

I finally decided that measures we usually didn't take were called for. I reached over to my stereo and turned up a song by K.K., who we had become familiar with since he was working with Rover. Candice _hated _K.K. Slider songs. They were good songs – I don't know what prejudice she had against them. But the point was, Candice covered her ears and marched dignifiedly out of the door without saying a word.

"Nice," Delly murmured, still focused on the paper that Candice had tugged away from her. I grabbed Candice's cereal bowl and made to empty it into the sink, but Carolyn, who had become a bit more frugal after her life on the run, slid the bowl out from under my arm as I began to pour. Delly, who wasn't paying attention, said over the music that Owen was slowly turning down now that Candice was out of sight, "Aurie, have you seen this?"

I came over to her. There was an ad underneath the obituary for Mabel Able. It said, _Negative Zero, in Falcon area City, to close after a ten-year run. Looking for new owner to manage. _"I know you're a member and I'm not, Aurie, but you've got to get me that job," Delly said simply, pointing to the phone number to call.

"What do you mean?"

"I went to Negative Zero once with a boy who had a membership card. It was fantastic. I fell in love with the nightclub almost immediately. If you don't want to become the owner, then please, please help me do so! You're the only real friend I've got with a membership."

I frowned. "There's probably some restriction… like you have to be a member for five years, or something."

"I don't care. Can I go with you and Carolyn tomorrow to the City? We can go to GracieGrace and then a quick look around in Negative Zero. One second is all I ask for."

I had no idea how Delly knew of Carolyn and my girls' day out we were still planning, even though the reason for Labelle's absence had been discovered, but I agreed. "It sounds fun, I guess," I told her, and then Owen wanted to come, but Carolyn threw a grape at him again.

"It's _girls' _day out, genius," she accused him.

I looked at the open door that Candice had left, and thanked God that our resident nosy neighbor was not around to hear that. If she had been, whether we tried to stop her or not, Candice would have come with us and she would ruin our day completely with her gossipy chatter about subjects we didn't care about.

I wondered how we could get her to move out. A plan began to take shape in my head involving a call to Rover and a private visit from K.K. Slider himself…


	33. Chapter 33

**Finally! Sorry for the enormous delay. Enjoy the new chapter.**

The next morning I woke up much, much too early. It was four-thirty when I raised my head and looked out the window to see little white flakes of snow spiraling down through the pitch-black dawn, but snow has always been electrocuting to me. When Holly and I lived in the same house during the winter, I was always the one squealing and jumping on her bed to wake her up, yelling, "It's snowing, Holly! Wake up! Wake _up!_ Let's go get our snow gear on right now – no – that would take too long! Let's go outside in the snow in our underwear! No one would mind! It's snowing!"

"I would mind," Holly would mumble and pull the blankets up over her head.

Anyway, childhood enthusiasm has always struck me the most in the case of cotton candy, unicorn and lion merry-go-rounds, and snow. So within a few seconds of me staring with deer-in-the-headlight eyes at the fluffy round snowflakes spinning quickly to the ground, I was up and running through the house and screaming.

Owen, being on the couch and not tucked away in a hidden pantry room, was awake first. "What… Aurora?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"IT'S SNOWING!" I shrieked, losing my head completely and hitting him with a pillow.

In five minutes, all of us were up, albeit two of us grumpy. Carolyn seemed to share the same childhood-fondness I did for snow, and as I discovered later, candy canes, butterscotch, and pink stripy socks. Anyhow, I'm sure Delly volunteered to cook breakfast for us today, just to get out of the room that she claimed was "too enthusiastic."

"The first snow of the season," Carolyn whispered, her eyes glazing over with delight.

"We're all going to spend it at the City, which might just be the most awesome place in the world for having fun," I chimed in.

Owen merely rolled his eyes.

Delly called us in for blueberry and chocolate-chip pancakes; it looked, as we entered the kitchen, that she was warming toward the idea of snow. (No pun intended, if there was in fact a pun in that sentence.) As we ate, Delly planned out our day at the City – "First we go to GracieGrace and ask whoever's replacing Labelle where she is, then, if we've got time, stop at a café or something, then head over to Negative Zero and take a quick look around to see if a membership card can be sent to me…"

There was one other good thing about the snow, I thought, as I wolfed down my pancakes. Besides the obvious, I mean; snow is wonderful and fun and it was my favorite childhood memory. But it also seemed to be keeping a certain rhino from coming to our door and disturbing our cheery little breakfast scene…

Thank God Candice hadn't heard that thought out loud. Just to be safe, I reached under the table and knocked three times on the wood, then took a handful of salt from the centerpiece and tossed a few grains of it over my left shoulder. Just in case.

"That's disgusting," commented Owen.

"What?"  
"The fact that you should need salt with your pancakes."

A fight began over the breakfast table involving salt and breakfast, Delly and I screaming that it was wonderful on the right breakfasts; Owen and Carolyn countering with salt being only properly yummy at dinner, before I checked my watch and yelled over everybody that it was already ten in the morning and we should probably go.

(It wasn't ten in the morning. It was only nine-thirty, but I knew how long bus rides could take on snowy days and anyway, I was really eager to see Labelle, if she had returned yet from her break from work. The last real contact we'd had had been a quick smooch right on the lips, and I found myself really wanting to continue contact in that family… I squashed that thought before it could lead to anything more.)

Owen, who had lost interest at spending a whole day in a blustery, slippery, freezing City, put up nearly no trouble about not being invited in the girl's day out. Nearly. He still playfully bantered with Carolyn about it for at least twenty minutes, resulting in us arriving at the City just after 10:14.

Snow was still spiraling down to the ground when we exited the bus. Carolyn shivered a little and wrapped a coat she'd borrowed from Owen around her tighter as we started to walk. A few other people passed us, but they were hurrying from store to store with that anxious "Christmas shopping" look on their faces.

"Oh, look!" Carolyn whispered, pointing to a store I'd never noticed. "They've got specially fitted black throat collars on sale. Alice would love that. Can we get it for her, please? W-we could give it to her for Christmas." Alice had been visiting us recently, saying it had comparatively become very dull in Beryl now that she had met us. I still wasn't quite sure if that was a compliment or not.

"How much money do you have, Aurie?" Delly queried, taking out her wallet.

A few minutes later, we returned onto the street carrying a black plastic shopping bag with skull patterns all over it. Delly's eyes were still rolling. "Can we just get to GracieGrace, please?" she kept saying. I think she wanted to finish our other errands faster so she could apply for the job at Negative Zero.

We made for GracieGrace, but I had this horrible foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach which intensified the closer we got. What if Labelle had returned since I had last called the boutique? The last contact we had directly shared was a kiss. What if she felt awkward about seeing me? Oh, God, what if she didn't want to see me anymore?

I didn't have any fears about being homosexual. I knew neither my parents would care; one of their daughters had already come out and they hadn't been too shocked about it. Besides, Falcon wasn't a very homophobic city. I had never been opposed to the idea, so discovering that I might be gay now wasn't horrific like it was for some other people, but I still worried that my friends might… what? I didn't know. They'd been relatively accepting once they had found out that Labelle was interested in me. But I was still irrationally worried, so I hadn't told them that I was pretty sure I had a crush on a girl.

I needed to call Holly soon. Not being able to talk to my friends about this kind of problem was going to kill me.

GracieGrace was covered with snow and Christmas lights and looked beautiful in the sunlight when we arrived at the store. Carolyn's eyes widened as she took in the fabulous, intricate, expensive clothes, but Delly and I walked in like we'd lived here all our life. Carolyn took particular interest in a gossamer, revealing periwinkle dress with a cut hip and matching shoes. The green flower pinned to the mannequin's lapel attracted her attention. She stepped lightheadedly over to it and stared, openmouthed.

Delly tapped me on the shoulder. "I'm gonna stay with Carolyn. You go find your girl."

I didn't even bother protesting that Labelle was not "my girl".

A blonde human girl with the nametag _Britney_ was smacking gum behind the counter. I stepped warily up to her. She looked at me impassively, giving none of the warmth that showed she loved her job like Labelle. "E-excuse me. Where's Labelle?"

She smacked her gum, flowing watermelon-flavored perfume all over me. "Gone. Taking some sort of family emergency. How can I help you?" I'd gotten serious profanity aimed at me with more warmth than the tone in her voice.

I knew it was stupid, but I couldn't help asking. "Did she leave anything for me? A note? My name's Aurora Swann. If that helps."

Britney eyed me up and down. "Swann? Uh. Nope."

I felt a little defeated, but for some reason the foreboding feeling was still there. "Can I go into the back room for a moment? I'm a friend of Labelle's, she's let me in there before."

Britney had already switched her attention to the new customers entering the store. I held my breath and signaled to Delly before stealthily slipping past the other human. Once I had entered the Employees Only room, I let my breath out and felt a few tears form in my eyes. You'd think that she'd leave some kind of note for someone she'd kissed and gone out to dinner with. I knew I was being selfish and that her sister was dead – but I couldn't _help _it.

There was something scribbled on a note attached to a clothes rack. I walked over to it, selfishness forgotten, and pulled the note up to where I could see it: "Reminder, home phone is broken so messages transferred here. Check work phone this time. Labelle."

As soon as I read the words, a pang of warmth at seeing her friendly handwriting sprung through me. At the same time I got a flash of inspiration. If I could find her work phone, I was fairly sure that I could access recorded messages, and maybe I could listen to whoever had told her her sister was dead. Maybe, just maybe, I could find out some key information, like where the funeral was, and I could track Labelle down. Suppose this was my last chance to see her? Maybe she had left GracieGrace for good?

Delly entered the Employees Only room, responding to my hurried signal, just as I found a cell phone lying underneath a long grey skirt with a stars-and-moon in deep blue pattern. Labelle must have left her cell here. I turned it on and began scrolling through the last recorded messages as I explained to Delly what my plan was.

"Let me think," Delly mused. "You're willing to stalk a girl – break into an employees' storeroom – and access her phone conversations, all so that you can find out where her sister's funeral is so you can stalk her further." Heavy on the implications. Thanks, Delly.

"All right, fine!" I snapped, strung out. I had found the last conversation Labelle had had and was itching to play it. "Maybe I do have a crush on her, but it's none of your business. And don't you dare tell anyone I told you."

She merely raised an eyebrow.

I groaned with exasperation and pressed play on the recording.

"H-hello?" came a voice that I could only describe as sad. My thesaurus was gathering dust on the shelf and I wasn't looking forward to clean it, so it's not my fault. Delly stopped silently smirking and listened.

"Sable?" It sounded like Labelle. It had been so long since I had heard the other girl's voice, I didn't realize how much I already missed it.

"Yes. Who's this?"

"Um… your sister. Labelle."

"I don't have a sister."

Delly glanced at me as Labelle reacted in shock. "Y-yes you do. E-even if you don't c-count me, there's still Mabel, right? Sabe, I'm so, so sorry for everything I did and every year I stayed away."

Suddenly, just as Sable started to unexpectedly burst out with a bunch of hateful words, Delly reacted to something. "Pause!" she whispered. But I was still hanging on Sable's every word until the tirade ended.

"M-Mabel's… dead?" Labelle whispered. "How?"

"Disease," hissed Sable. "We didn't have enough money to pay for fixing it or even diagnosing it. I know you used to send checks once in a while, but that was a long time ago! Label, if you'd just come home, and helped, we would have made enough cash to at least know what caused her death."

"Go back!" whispered Delly. "Rewind it! I thought I heard something."

I went back to the beginning and increased the volume. There was some muttering I hadn't heard earlier before Sable said, "H-hello?"

"Not that far. Fast forward."

I increased the volume some more. "No thanks to you, Mabel d-died last night –"

"That's right," said an extremely distant voice. Delly and I strained our ears. "Put some real hatred into it. Keep going or your little sister dies."

Delly's eyes went round. I'm sure mine did too.

"– I was asking for you to come home because I needed another set of paws around the place! But NO! Somebody who doesn't care whether her baby sister lives or d-dies thinks that fashion and fame is more important than family!"

"Ooh, nice," came the hiss. I decided it was male and vaguely familiar.

"M-Mabel's… dead?" came Labelle's voice again.

"Okay, now," came the male voice, so faint I could barely hear it. "Tell her Mabel died of a nasty disease. Or she genuinely will. Put some drama into it, hm?"

I stopped the recording and stared at Delly with wide eyes. She stared back. "Aurie – how many people do we know whose annoying catchphrase is 'hm'?"

My breath came ragged. "'You didn't even answer the letter I wrote saying that Tom and I had broken up.' That's one of the things she said. Who do we know with a grudge against Sable Able, the girl who had broken up with Tom Nook?"

**Annnnnd the plot thickens!**

**I can't promise when the next chapter will be out, but I can't just ditch a storyline that took such a twist, so it'll be soon.**


	34. Chapter 34

**Eptastic Girl: Thanks for reviewing again! Once we find out what exactly Tom Nook's motives are, I'm not even sure that hitting him with a frying pan will be enough. I never really liked that guy after the fourth time he forced me to pay another mortgage.**

**This new chapter is in third person, focusing on Labelle.**

Mabel slumped on the floor of the basement. Out of all three of them, she was taking this the hardest; her paws were all scratched and bloodied from where she had frantically pounded at the door. Labelle was silent. She realized how they'd been tricked, and couldn't describe how fantastically happy she'd felt when she had come home to find Mabel alive, but in time that had worn off to be replaced by dull frustration and anger at Tom Nook.

"I really am sorry," Labelle said, turning eyes up to Sable.

Sable looked down sorrowfully. "Ellie…" she began, using her special nickname for Labelle. "It's me who should be sorry. He was going to kill Mabel if I didn't cooperate, but that doesn't mean it was okay for me to lie to you."

"I know… but I've been so distant lately, and I have this feeling that if I had even bothered to call you or write a letter or _some_thing, this would never have happened. Tom Nook wouldn't have gotten so angry that…" Labelle broke off.

The reason he had kidnapped them was simple. He had proclaimed his love for Sable, but she had eventually broken up with him because he kept on taking: taking almost half the Bells their little shop made in a day; taking clothing they sold and saying he ought to have a discount on it, given all of the "help" he had provided them.

Tom Nook had been so angry one day when Mabel, with her trademark flash of fire that had gotten her a reputation as "feisty" with the men on the street, had screamed at him to just leave them alone. He had gotten even angrier when Sable hadn't stood up for him, and he had strode out of the store, receiving a phone call from Sable informing him that they were breaking up just minutes later.

"I would have broken up with him anyway," Sable said sadly.

"If I had been around," Labelle said, her voice cracking, "I feel like I could have told him from the start to just stop being so greedy and controlling. Before he really started liking you. Maybe if I had just stood up for my big sister" – she flashed Sable a weak smile – "this crisis could have been averted."

Sable smiled a little back. "Even if it hadn't helped, I would have loved to see more of you," she said quietly, and squeezed Labelle's paw. Mabel didn't look up from her position on the cold basement floor, and the three of them just sat there, wishing that they could have changed the past.

After a few minutes, Mabel got up and started scratching at the door again.

"I love you," Labelle told her, and was surprised that she'd said it aloud. Mabel turned around and glanced at her second oldest sister, and her face softened a little.

"Why do you say that?" she asked hoarsely.

Labelle held out her arms – not expectant, just asking for forgiveness. She was answered by her youngest sister climbing into her arms and sitting on her lap, encased in the other hedgehog's hug. Labelle continued, "I can't believe I ever ditched you guys. I acted like a total bitch, and I am so, so sorry for ever thinking that clothes are more important than you."

Sable stroked Labelle's paw with her own. "Look, Labelle, you being away tore a big rift in our family, okay? I wish I could be tough, I wish I could be able to say that sorry won't cut it…" She smiled a bit wider this time. "But when it comes to my sisters, being tough and unforgiving isn't an option. We're trapped in a basement together while Nook pulls out whatever big evil scheme he's planning up there. I think that this is what your karma gets you, and with the whole universe retaliating for your mistake, you don't need your big sister adding anything else on." She squeezed her sister's paw.

Labelle gave her a wan smile. "Thank you."

Mabel's voice came muffled out of Labelle's hug. "Can you guys just stop with the whole lovey-dovey sister thing? In case you hadn't noticed, we're trapped in a basement of some random location, I don't even know where he took us; while our kidnapper is out there running around with no justice being served. We need to get out somehow, and being all forgiving isn't unlocking that door."

Sable and Labelle looked down at the youngest sibling, and burst into laughter in unison. It wasn't humorous laughter, it was more like I'm-so-freaked-out-I've-never-been-kidnapped-before laughter. Panicked, terrified, but laughter nonetheless. All three of the hedgehogs stood up shakily and brushed the dirt from the basement floor off their pants.

"Well," said Sable gently, glancing over at the rest of her family. "I suppose we'd better figure out what Tom Nook's plan is, and more importantly, what it's going to take to avoid it."


	35. Chapter 35

**Merry Christmas, everyone! The next chapter will have shovelfuls of Labelle/Aurora, I promise, to make up for all the time Labelle spent in the dirty hole of a basement Tom Nook captured her in. I hope your holiday season is fantastic!**

"Hello?"

Delly and I were tentatively venturing into Tom Nook's store after a hurried cab drive from the City. We'd grabbed Carolyn on the way; but when we got to Falcon, she had sped off in the direction of Candice's house, something none of us expected. But Delly and I couldn't stop to find out what she was doing; Tom Nook's shop had a light on and we went to check it out.

"Welcome, welcome, Misses Aurora and Cordelia." Tom Nook's voice came out of the darkness much-too-jovially, like a creepy horror movie. The figure of the raccoon loomed above us. I elbowed Delly in the ribs as she started to angrily demand what was going on.

"Hi, Mr. Nook," I began, thinking fast. "Our TV broke down just as it was showing that _awful_ kidnapping news. We wanted to find out more on the story, so we came to see if you have any television sets for sale."

Delly seemed to catch on. "Yes, Mr. Nook. Sorry to bother you like this, but that kidnapping of the Able sisters – dreadful! I hope that this _shocking_ crime is solved by the police soon. Did you see? Police cars were parked all over Falcon."

I barely hid a grin. She was so good at this – albeit a tad obvious.

Nook looked at us impassively. "Television sets are over here." He guided us over to a rack of screens and tangled wires, then moved back to the front desk.

Delly whispered to me, "He didn't seem panicked at all!"

"Well, no." I pointed up to a powered TV screen mounted in the top corner of the shop. "He would have seen it if there were any kidnapping news in the first place. He must not be worried because no one has discovered what he's done."

"Well, _I _for one am _stunned _at this news!"

Candice, the powerful, irritating, nosy rhino stormed into the shop, Carolyn trailing behind with an enormous grin covering her face. It had been so long since we had seen a smile that big on the little deer, Delly and I involuntarily grinned back.

"Did you hear about it, Mr. Nook!" Candice demanded. "This girl accused you of kidnapping!" She turned to Carolyn. "I always suspected something odd about this man," she said in a stage whisper before turning back to Nook. "Well, my lord, you aren't even bothering to deny it! I may as well call the police right now!"

"No –"

"I figured we'd need a distraction," Carolyn explained, moving over to us.

"Well, good work," I whispered back. "D'you think he's keeping them anywhere in his shop? We should look to see if there are any clues."

"Aurie, you go that way," Delly said, taking charge. "Carolyn and I will poke around in the back of the shop. You go sneak behind the counter – I bet that there's a secret trapdoor, probably triggered by a button on the cash register."

I nodded and pushed back some errant locks of hair. Delly and Carolyn set off as I snuck behind the bulk of Candice. Tom Nook looked very alarmed and didn't notice me in the least, but I still held my breath as I squeezed past a row of shopping carts. If I bumped against something now, everything would fall, Tom Nook would whip around and that would be it for all of us. _Nice going with the encouragement, Aurie. Crap, now I'm saying the nickname too!_

Tom Nook hadn't seen me. I breathed a sigh of relief and started searching around behind the counter. There was a stick of gum, a receipt, some pencils, a keychain, a scratched-up piece of doorstop, a scrap of some kind of fabric…

Hang on – this was GracieGrace brand fabric!

I picked it up and scrutinized it. It looked like it had been torn with claws, probably raccoon claws as Labelle struggled to free herself. Suppose he'd been waiting for her at the shop, and when she arrived in Falcon, he snatched her up…

I tried to attract Delly and Carolyn's attention. They were poking around in what looked like a refrigerator box – or at least, Delly was. Carolyn appeared to be fascinated with a pair of pink stripy socks. I rolled my eyes, still trying to alert the pair of them without Nook seeing.

Finally, Delly looked up, but it wasn't because of me. She waved at me and pointed into the refrigerator box display, from which a strange light was issuing, and began to climb into the cardboard. She didn't come out.

It all clicked together. The only two public bathrooms in town were the museum, by the café; and Tom Nook's shop. I remembered that the café wasn't open on the day Labelle went missing. Nook must have recruited Brewster for the master plan.

Labelle had to use the bathroom after the lengthy bus ride. Instead of going directly to the Able Sister's shop, all the way across town, she stopped at Tom Nook's, where he grabbed her, covered her eyes, and took her somewhere. And where else but his own store? This way he could keep an eye on her and avoid the cops, because really, who checks around in refrigerator display boxes? There was probably, no, definitely a secret door in there.

I squeezed my way back behind the furious Candice, and that's when he saw it. Carolyn, climbing into the cardboard box, had accidentally made a movement big enough to attract Tom Nook's attention. "Hey!" he yelled over Candice's opinion on the state of his clothing. "You can't go in there! That's not for playing in!"

Carolyn looked up, wide-eyed. Tom Nook, heedless of Candice's advice, was striding toward her. I took a dive toward him and pushed him to the ground, leaping up and making a break for the box display.

"Well, I never!" spluttered Candice. Tom Nook got up faster than I expected and seized the back of my shirt, pulling me away from the refrigerator box.

"You'll not live to see the day your precious hedgehogs…" he began, and I struggled and tried to kick. _At least Delly and Carolyn're gonna get out,_ I thought desperately, suffocating around the collar of the shirt I was wearing.

"Put her down," interjected a calm, authoritative voice. I knew that voice… Owen!

Tom Nook looked up, and I took the opportunity to hit him in the jaw with what was left of my strength. He flinched, but didn't let go.

Owen moved aside in the doorway to reveal three people I never expected to see: Rover, K.K. Slider, and _Holly._

"You put my sister down right now," commanded Holly. "Or else."

"Or else what?" Tom Nook breathed, expertly taking hold of my arm and twisting it behind my back. I couldn't help but cry out in pain.

"Or else we'll bash your head in. I thought that was implied," said Rover. He was holding what looked like a tire iron, and looked completely serious.

Tom Nook appraised the group standing in the doorway. I suddenly noticed something. Candice had somehow disappeared… for a fleeting moment I hoped she was standing behind Tom Nook, ready to crush him if he tried to hurt me again. Then I realized how pathetic it is to hope your meddlesome, talkative neighbor will save your life when your sister and your friend's boyfriend are standing right there. Besides, she had probably gone to phone the police. Or just leave because K.K. Slider had made an appearance.

I made a sudden movement, twisting away from Tom Nook. I felt both arms pop, but I kept going until I discovered I was free. As K.K., Rover, and Owen grappled with Tom Nook, Holly seized my elbow and hurried me over to the refrigerator box.

"Get in!" she directed. "They won't be able to hold him for long. Your rhino friend is calling the police."

So I was right; she hadn't just up and left. I wriggled into the phone booth-sized box, letting Holly crawl in with me, and together we searched for the secret door.

"I think… it's here…" I panted, flipping open a thin panel. I wriggled my fingers into the hole, slapping at it in frustration when it didn't immediately work, and inadvertently triggering a tiny button. Holly and I were suddenly falling.

We landed on cold, stony ground. There was a few seconds of silence before I heard a voice muttering, "Not the most graceful entrance, but I'll take it."

"Delly?" I looked up and around. The squirrel grinned at me and reached down to help me up. I took her paw gratefully.

It was dark where we had fallen, but I could still make out the forms of Carolyn, Delly, Holly… and three shivering, malnourished hedgehogs huddled against the opposite wall. My head had barely turned toward them when warm lips enveloped my own.

Labelle's arms enclosed me, and any kind of thought rapidly became more difficult, although I did hear a couple wolf whistles and dimly remembered that I was in a very small basement filled with close friends of mine. I think Carolyn yelled something like "Get a room!"

A moment passed before I raised my fist and flicked up my middle finger.

Labelle backed away from me, blushing, a few seconds later, and we both awkwardly turned to face the rest of the room. I spread out my hands, like, _What?_

A few more uncomfortable seconds passed before Holly's eyes stopped flickering between me (her supposedly straight sister) and Labelle (her decidedly lesbian ex). Finally, she nodded with a sort of grudging approval and turned to Delly.

"So… should we try to get out? I think that if we balance on each other's shoulders, one of us can climb out of here and pull the others up."

A murmur of agreement drifted through the little basement. I hadn't noticed before, but there were a couple of very low stairs that led to a door on the opposite side of the room. The smaller hedgehog, presumably Mabel, had scratches and cuts all over her paws that matched the grooves in the wood of the door. She caught me looking and hid her paws behind her back.

"It doesn't work that way," Mabel muttered, jerking her chin to the door. "It's a really heavy door and anyway, Nook's got the only key. We have to climb up like your sis said."

The other hedgehog, probably Sable, stood underneath the skylight that led to the refrigerator box. She motioned to Delly to climb up her shoulders, and then Carolyn, the lightest of all, scampered up on top. From there, Carolyn pulled Delly up, and the two of them helped the rest of us until we were all finally standing in Tom Nook's store, panting and scrapes all down our arms from where we had to hang onto the rough stone wall.

Lane the police dog flashed us a grin. He had Tom Nook in handcuffs and had wrestled him into a cop car while we were in the basement. K.K. Slider and Rover stood aside, looking relatively pleased with themselves, while Owen ran to Carolyn.

"Victor isn't happy that the Shadow helped rescue a few kidnappees," the friendly police dog told me as he ushered Labelle and her two siblings into a separate police car. "But then again, fugitives on his watch apparently turned out to not only be innocent, but also practically superheroes. Good job, you guys."

"Girls, and superheroines," Labelle corrected, just before the car door slammed on her. I watched her go, something like sadness crinkling my brow. I wondered if I'd ever get to see her again, and if she was going to continue working at GracieGrace now.

Owen, Carolyn, Delly, and I declined a ride back to my house (Holly was riding with Rover and K.K., I still didn't know why exactly), and instead we walked. All of us were very quiet. "Why do you think Tom Nook wanted to kidnap them?" I asked finally, glancing toward Carolyn, who had been very quiet towards me.

"Who knows?" It was Delly who replied. "That guy is crazy. Maybe he wanted to rape them, maybe he was going to murder them and sell their body parts on the black market. All we know is he was driven mad with longing for Sable."

"You're a lesbian?" Carolyn asked softly, unexpectedly.

I looked at her, taken aback. "Well, um. Yeah. I guess. Do you have… I don't know… some sort of problem with that?"

She shook her head, obviously not meaning any offense. "No. No. Just… Delly and I kept teasing you about Labelle, and I didn't even think that that might hurt, that that might upset you. And I don't have a problem with it… as long as you don't either."

I squeezed her hand. "Thanks. I'm good. Holly's gay too, but I barely remember that anymore. She's always been my big sister, you know?"

Carolyn nodded. The four of us continued to slowly walk toward my house in the snow.


	36. Chapter 36

**Guest: Don't worry, we're not done with the story yet, although we are getting close. Thank you so, SO much for your review! I've always wanted to be a writer, and having someone comment with words like "exceptional" just made my year!**

**Supershadowdan12: Thank you! Hearing everyone's comments and reviews is something special that I reserve for when I'm unhappy or upset. All I have to do to cheer myself up is click on the reviews section of my stories, and it's people like you that make that moment one of the best of my day.**

**Enjoy the chapter, everyone. This one is just a few sweet little moments with Aurora and Labelle a few days after Labelle returned home from the whole kidnapping incident.**

I stepped hesitantly into GracieGrace a few days later. "Labelle?" I asked cautiously, letting the automatic doors close behind me.

"Yeah?"

She came out of the darkness. Her nametag, proclaiming "Hello! I am… Labelle Able!" was crooked and I caught myself reaching out to fix it. But then I realized what I was doing and snatched my hand away, blushing.

' "I just… wondered if you were going to continue working here, that's all."

"Oh, I don't know," she said, sighing and looking at the floor. A long satin dress, sequined and glittered, threw light like a disco ball onto the scene. "I want to keep working here, I love my job, but you know… I told Gracie that my personal life wouldn't be an issue if I kept working, but she's allowed me to see you with hardly any fuss. In fact, she's encouraged it."

I nodded a little. "Which is kind of hypocritical. I mean, she tells you you can't keep working here if you're always taking time off for your family and friends, but then she says you're working too hard and you should go get some fresh air."

"Yeah… so I'm going to try talking to her next time I see her. I'm going to tell her that my working here is crushing my family and I, and that either we have to compromise or I'm going to quit. I know where I can find work if I need it." She flashed me a smile. "Negative Zero's got a job opening."

"Yeah, uh, I meant to talk to you about that," I said, leaning against the wall. "You know Delly?" I remembered their last real interaction, how Delly had teased her about me, and winced a little. "I really shouldn't be asking."

"It's okay. She made up for it by helping rescue me." Labelle was watching me intently.

"Well… we need someone who has been a member for a really long time to help refer her. She really adores Negative Zero…"

"I'll mention her next time I visit," Labelle assured me. We stood in silence for a few minutes, and soon Labelle became quite interested in inspecting her name tag. "God… you must really think I'm messed up, don't you. My whole family situation… getting kidnapped by a crazy raccoon shopkeeper…"

"My best friend was a fugitive and got into a relationship with the guy she was accused of murdering," I said lightly. "Believe me, getting kidnapped isn't too much of a big deal when it comes to messed up."

She laughed a little. "Follow me, okay?" she asked, taking my hand. This time neither of us jerked away self-consciously. The hedgehog pulled us toward the Employees Only room, the one with the mirror. As soon as the door closed on us she began to measure me with a measuring tape she had seemingly pulled out of nowhere.

"Wh–"

"Remember the first day you were here?" she queried, measuring my hips. "There was a beautiful blue dress and matching coat that billowed out like a cape. You seemed to really like it. That's when I first got intrigued by you… the dress wouldn't have fit you the way it fit that mannequin, you're more slender and differently built. So I began to design a better dress, one that would fit you perfectly. Couldn't do it without your measurements, so I always meant to properly get them… then you were arrested and I was kidnapped."

"I can understand how that would put a flaw in your plans," I said as nonchalantly as I could. She was now measuring my bust.

A few figures were jotted onto a notepad and the measuring tape was rolled up. Labelle now seemed a little unsure. I know we both recalled the feeling of her hands against my hips as she measured them. But it wasn't completely an uncomfortable silence; the kiss in the basement had been something more intimate than the quick kiss she'd given me after our date. Both of us now knew we were something more than friends… so more-than-friendly actions seemed quite natural, didn't they?

I initiated the kiss this time. Impulsively, I leaned my face forward and closed my eyes, and she responded by cautiously hesitating before moving into the kiss. We stood there, shifting closer to each other, enjoying the scent and feel of the other, for at least a minute.

This time pulling back wasn't embarrassing. Her paw was still under the folds of my hair as we opened our eyes, which we gazed into for a couple of seconds before beginning to disentangle ourselves.

"C'mon," Labelle said softly, untucking the hem of her shirt from my pants. "I'll walk you to the bus stop."

I linked my hand with hers as we walked. For some reason she had been able to sense that I hadn't come to the City for any reason than seeing her, and now that I'd done that, it was time to go home. She let go of my hand at the bus stop, and I looked at her, needing to say something but unsure how to say it. "So… I'll come and see you later?"

She nodded and gave me a slight smile. "I might be off work bonding with my family for a couple of days… but I'll always be around when you need me." A pocketbook came out of the inside of her jacket. "Take this, okay? It has copies of my contact information on the first page."

I took the book gratefully and stowed it away. "Thank you." I leaned in for one more quick kiss before boarding the bus. We would eventually have to get around to the what-is-the-definition-of-girlfriend discussion, but thankfully, now was not the time.

As I sat in the bus taking me home, I fingered Labelle's handwriting spelling out her phone number and sighed. I had hardly been able to get her out of my head even before all of this occurred.


	37. Chapter 37

**This one's kind of short. Thank you, Sofie, Eptastic Girl, and Supershadowdan12, for taking the time to write again!**

As soon as I got back, I found Carolyn alone in the house. She cornered me, glanced around and shut the pantry door on us, even though there was no one around to hear.

"What's up?" I asked. I was still in a cheerful mood from seeing Labelle, but Carolyn's somber mood wasn't lost on me.

"I need your help," she said, looking directly at me.

"Okay."

"It's about Owen. Um… it's just that we've never done anything more than kiss and hold hands. He seems to react to me in an almost platonic way… like w-we aren't even in a relationship. Sometimes like we aren't even friends." It was clear that she had recited this over and over to herself while waiting for me to come home.

I made a sympathetic face. "Have you talked to Del about this?"

"No."

"Have you… made it clear that you want to progress further?"

She nodded a little. "Aurie… ever since I suggested we take even the slightest step from first base, he's been ignoring me." She unexpectedly hung her head. "I keep stupidly thinking that it's me, or that he doesn't want me."

"I know the feeling." I did. It had haunted me for ages before the first time Labelle kissed me. "Has he initiated any contact at all? Or have you been the only one?"

"Only once. At the trial, when he was so happy I wasn't put away in jail. But I have been the only one wanting to continue contact in that family, yes." She watched me intently, waiting for me to say something.

"You need to talk to _him,_ Carolyn. Nothing's going to be solved if you don't find out exactly what you are. And if he makes excuses to avoid talking to you, you might as well break up with him. It's a bad sign when your significant other doesn't find you significant enough."

Carolyn nodded anxiously. "I suppose you're r-right."

That finished, I walked out of the pantry just in time for the door to slam. Delly was standing in the kitchen looking slightly disconcerted. I poked her elbow. "So… what's with the face?" My spirits were only slightly dimmed by Carolyn's problem, as I could still feel the prickles from Labelle's quills on my skin.

Delly raised her head and looked at me as if I weren't there. "Aurora…" Her face broke into a grin and her hands wouldn't stop trembling. "I – got – a – date!"

Carolyn was watching us inscrutably, but I didn't want to dim Delly's enthusiasm at her romantic success. "That's awesome! Who?"

"Oh," she breathed. "He's wonderful. You'll never guess what his name is."

"What is it?"

She looked up at me, eyes shining. "Damian."

I suddenly had a very bad feeling about this.

**A/N: I haven't specified Damian's species because I wanted to leave that open for interpretation.**

**Oh, and progress on this might be slow cause I'm considering starting another Animal Crossing novel. I'm not sure when/if I'll get it out. But just so you know, even if progress on my current story halts, it doesn't mean I've abandoned it.**


	38. Chapter 38

**This chapter is dedicated to ****EmoEevee345**** for all of her recent reviews. Thank you and enjoy the chapter, everyone!**

There are times in my life when I think "Hooray! None of this would have happened if we hadn't met Carolyn on the bus!" and times when I think "Aww. Life sucks. And none of this would have happened if we hadn't met Carolyn on the bus."

This time was one of the latter.

"Damian?" I managed to choke out. "Delly –"

"Oh, I know!" she said, twirling around. She clearly didn't remember who had been the 'anonymous source' sending us to jail. "Our names start with the same letter! _And_ he's a waiter at Negative Zero! Doesn't he just sound wooonderful?"

"Um…"

"I asked him to refer me at the club. He says he's going to, Aurie!"

"Great." I lowered myself to a chair and shot Carolyn a bemused glance. She spread her hands in equal perplexity. "Delly… there's something we have to tell you. About Damian."

"What?" Suddenly Delly wasn't blissfully ignorant of my somber tone. "What do you mean? He's not…"

I glanced at Carolyn again. "Um. Delly. Has he told you about a girl named Mari yet?"

_"He has a girl on the side?_ I'll kill her! Where does she live?"

It took five minutes of persuading Delly to sit down in a chair and not run out with a chainsaw searching for the innocent black cat. She finally did, her eyes still blazing, until I told her the truth.

"Delly. Mari's not the girl on the side… you are."

The fire in her eyes immediately died as she understood what I was saying. "Damian's… cheating on his girlfriend? With me?"

"But she won't break up with him because she needs his money to help support her and her child, Aiden. I actually told you all of this before, Delly. He is the waiter at Negative Zero who overheard Labelle and me."

Her eyebrows shot up. "He's the anonymous source –"

"Yeah."

"But he's so nice. How can he…?"

"I described how he treats women in general. Apparently, according to Labelle, he'll try to flirt with anything with legs."

Delly just sat there, stunned.

"Where did he ask you out to, anyway?" I continued.

"The Marquee."

"Ouch." I could recall the one and only trip I had been to the Marquee. Granted, it had been the first time I'd seen Carolyn, but the rest of the time was spent with my mouth hanging open in horror that anyone thought this was funny. "Okay, here's what we do. Carolyn and I go with you to make it seem more like an 'outing' rather than a 'date.' Carolyn could even invite Owen –" I shot her a glance to make sure she was okay with that, and she nodded – "and I could invite Labelle. When asked, Delly, you thought that this was a group thing and misunderstood him, all right?"

She nodded seriously.

In my mind, this was a win for everybody. Owen and Carolyn were going to bond over the outing, Delly would be rid of her situation with Damian, and Labelle and I would get to have more time together.

But of course nothing ever goes the way as planned.


	39. Chapter 39

**50 flipping reviews! You guys ROCK! Thank you all so much for the encouragement and compliments that have gotten me through the day. I hope all of you enjoy this chapter!**

**Eptastic Girl****: I can't promise that everything will turn out _well_ for our heroes (and heroines). But everything, at least, will work out. I can't thank you enough for following this story as long as it's gone! :))) Same to you - keep on writing!**

**Supershadowdan12: :)))) Aww, thank you! I can't say exactly when the next chapter will be up, unfortunately, but I can hardly drop the story now. Thank you so much for reviewing!**

**Happy New Year, everybody. I hope that 2013 is the most awesome year of your life. (Which doesn't mean I suddenly want your life to turn crappy when 2014 rolls around. Just so we're clear.)**

"Right. Aurie, you call Labelle, and Carolyn, call Alice. She hasn't been around in forever and I really want to see her." Delly was very fond of Alice after we bonded in our jail cell. And she was right, Alice hadn't been around in a while. I missed her too. Once you got to know her, she was nowhere near as immoral as she described herself.

I nodded and headed up the stairs to the attic where my phone lived. It was lucky Labelle had given me her contact info, or I wouldn't be able to call her now. She picked up in the middle of the second ring.

"Hi, this is Labelle." She didn't say her whole you-have-reached-GracieGrace speech, and I began to feel worried that she had quit after all.

"Hi. This is Aurora? Sorry I'm calling so soon."

"No trouble at all. This is my cell phone, so it's not like you're taking up any of my work time. Anyway, there's no one but me here, so no big deal. What's up?"

"Remember Damian?"

"The creep?"

"Yeah. He asked Del out and she accepted." I heard the disgusted intake of breath on the other line before continuing. "So we're all going to go, to make it seem like Delly thought it was a big group thing. This way Damian won't be able to do anything couple-y. Are you in?"

"Smart. And where are you all going?"

"The Marquee. It's tonight, according to Delly."

"Yeah, I'd love to come," she said enthusiastically. "When exactly? Because GracieGrace closes at nine… although I guess I could ask Brit to cover for me…"

"Brit?"

"Britney. She covered for me while I was busy being kidnapped."

"Oh, right. But can't you just ask Gracie to let you get out early? Like you did before, when we went out to dinner?"

"No, unfortunately. Remember; I'm going to ask Gracie to let me have more time with my sisters, and I don't want to do anything to spoil her mood beforehand." I agreed with the sentiment. "Anyway, I'll ask Brit to do the last shift. Once she finds out it's you, Gracie won't mind, just as long as I ensure someone's covering the store at all times."

We continued to talk, and flirt for a few heart-skipping moments, before Delly yelled up the stairs: "Stop hitting on your girlfriend and get off the phone; Carolyn needs to call Alice!"

"Labelle's coming," I announced when I came down the stairs, Carolyn ducking around me. "Even if just her and Owen and Carolyn and I come with you, you're definitely not going to have to face Damian alone. Carolyn just needs to call Alice to see what's up with her."

Delly grinned. Owen glanced up from the couch he was settled on and rewarded us with a slight smile. I could see why Carolyn was worried about their relationship; he had definitely become frosty around not just her, but all of us.

"Anyway, you helped me get ready for my date with Labelle. I reserve the right to do so with yours," I said, attention back on Delly.

She groaned and threw her head around. "It's not a date."

"Where have we heard that before?" I smirked.

"I'm serious. Everything we're doing here is not a date. I don't think I need to dress up for it, especially as I'm not trying to lead him on."

"Yeah, well, I thought the thing with Labelle wasn't a date. We were just two girls sharing a meal together. And look what happened."

"But I don't _want _to end up Damian's girlfriend. Okay, I did when he first asked me out, but you know what I'm like around boys."

"No. Arguing. I get to pick your outfit tonight, or I'm not coming with you."

"Yeah, you will. Labelle's going too. You wouldn't miss spending time with her to save your life." Okay, she had a point there, but I didn't show my approval.

"I'll meet her at the Marquee and we'll head off on our own. Maybe go to some cute little romantic café. And I won't save you when Damian makes his move."

"Don't need you. I've got Carolyn, Owen, Alice," she theatrically counted, flicking up a finger each time she said a name.

"Bad news," declared Carolyn, coming down the stairs. "Alice can't make it. Too much snow on the roads near her town."

I smirked at Delly.

"I've got Owen and Carolyn," she insisted.

"Basically double-dating," I shot back. "At least with Labelle and I it could conceivably be called a group outing."

"Fine," she surrendered, groaning and throwing up her hands. "You can pick my outfit for the night. But screw you, I'm doing my own makeup."

"Fine," I said. I grabbed Carolyn's arm and spoke to her in a low voice. "We control everything now. _If_ we were cruel and decided to sabotage our best friend's date by making her wear an extremely unflattering costume, we could. But we won't, of course."

"Perish the thought," she agreed, a wicked smirk flitting over her face.

"C'mon, we have to go pick out something for Del to wear tonight."

I dragged Carolyn into the pantry, where we wriggled through the tiny secret opening into the guest bedroom Delly slept in. As soon as the door closed, the façade Carolyn was putting up fragmented and her anxious, worried self split through.

"Hey, it's okay," I soothed. "I know things are rocky between you and Owen, but you can talk it over after Delly's date."

A tear rolled from her left eye. "Aurie – I tried to talk to him just a second ago while you were on the phone with Labelle. In the _middle of my s-sentence, _h-he blew me off and started a conversation w-with Delly. She d-didn't seem to notice anything, but…" She broke off and threw herself into my arms.

"It's okay," I shushed, rubbing her back. "Next time insist on talking to him and do it in private, so he can't ignore you."

She sobbed incoherently into my shoulder for a second. "A-all my l-life I tried to t-trust people, and they always let me d-down. I th-thought I was free of th-that here in F-Falcon."

"It'll be okay. Worst comes to worst, you can still depend on us," I promised.

She tried to calm herself down, hiccupping every so often, while we sorted through Delly's clothes. Soon enough, we had a simple outfit of dark jeans, a beige long-sleeved loose see-through shirt, a turquoise tank top underneath, and a pair of dark brown flip-flops. As we worked, I couldn't help glancing again and again at Carolyn, who had already managed to calm herself down and mentally switch on her mask. Was this how she survived? Inside, she was an emotional wreck, but on the outside she looked composed. Maybe she was depending on that mask to help her real soul from showing itself.

I still didn't get it, though. Just because Owen was so distant didn't mean she was on the run again. Her entire desperate, violent, criminal past was gone. Or… was it? She had been so intrigued by one of the dresses at GracieGrace… and when we dragged her out of the boutique intent on rescuing Labelle, I hadn't even stopped to check to see if anything was gone. Maybe her kleptomania had stayed with her.

I hated myself for thinking this way, but it could be true. It could be that Carolyn had been working out her stress at having Owen ignore her by reverting to her old lifestyle. Which in turn would cause even more stress, because I knew she wanted to stay out of jail and it was hurting her.

Of course, I wasn't sure. And I didn't want to ask her about it now.

We headed out with the outfit (by now it was almost five o' clock; we were leaving at around five-thirty) and showed it to Delly. She glanced over it impassively. "I still don't like it that you guys get to pick out my attire for the evening. Suppose you rigged something to fall apart at a certain time?"

"Oh, w-we wouldn't do that," said Carolyn, covering her slight stutter with another wicked grin. "Aurie and I would go for the direct approach. If we needed something to fall apart, we would definitely just set it on fire."

Delly groaned in exasperation and snatched the clothes away. After she stormed out of the room to get dressed, I shot Carolyn a glance and jerked my head towards Owen, then slid out of the room into the kitchen. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't listen in, so I pressed my ear to the old-fashioned keyhole.

"Owen?" Her voice was tentative. "Um… we need to talk."

I heard the rustling of paper, but no answer from Owen.

"Look… I'm getting a bit… confused…"

Go for it, girl. You can do this.

"…about our… relationship."

"Yeah?" asked Owen. "What about it is confusing?"

"Well… um… it's almost like you don't pay any attention t-to me w-when w-we're in p-public. A-actually… ever. And I d-don't know if y-you want to break up, or if y-you're mad at m-me, b-but if you are, c-could you at l-least tell me?"

I slid my eye over to the keyhole. Goddammit. There was a fern in the way. I _knew_ we shouldn't have put that fern there. I slid my ear back and found that I had missed a couple lines of the dialogue –

"…mad at you, Carolyn. I'm just… I don't know, frustrated. You're moving things along a lot quicker than I'm comfortable with."

I noticed that he effortlessly shifted the responsibility for the problem over to Carolyn.

"W-we haven't even held h-hands in a week. Y-you haven't m-made eye c-contact with me f-for ages. I'm just trying t-to actually have a relationship, you're making it s-seem like you're trying to erase any hint of r-relationship left." She sounded like she was going to cry. _Hang in there. You can do this!_ "It's just… I don't understand anymore, Owen."

"That's right. You don't understand. Listen, Carolyn, I've been trying to make this clear to you… we're not exactly in a relationship. That kiss in the courtroom after you were proved not guilty… it didn't mean anything, okay? I just wanted to celebrate, I went with my instincts, and now you've been tagging along after me like we're married or something."

My eye went back to the keyhole, and even through the fern I could see Carolyn's sudden look of anger, horror, and betrayal. _Oh, no. Hang in there, honey!_

"Owen –"

"What is it, _babe?"_ he said mockingly, scornfully. He sounded nothing like the Owen Murkley we were all accustomed to. Shit, this was bad.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "First of all –" I noticed she wasn't stuttering any more – "First of all, Owen, if you didn't think this was a relationship, why the hell didn't you tell me before I fell in love with you?"

His eyes widened, and I think he was realizing how harsh he had sounded before. "Oh no – Carolyn –" he began, but she cut him off.

"Second, _babe,_ I have _not _been tagging after you like we're married. I have been tagging after you, as you put it, as if we were in a relationship. Which I was under the impression that we were, see #1 if you want a reason why. Because no one informed me otherwise, okay? This is _not my fault,_ and if you try to make it that one more time I'm going to lock you in a very small room with Candice. Are we CLEAR?"

Before he could answer, Carolyn stormed into the kitchen, where I was standing sympathetically, and slammed the door so hard the poor ill-treated spider in the top corner quaked nervously. That was Carolyn's anger out of the way, now the other emotions she was feeling (horror; betrayal) let themselves loose and she fell to the ground, a look of utter misery plastered across her face. Her mask was gone.

Just when I had started thinking the group outing wouldn't be so bad after all.


	40. Chapter 40

**Eptastic Girl: I know! I really, really want New Leaf, but I don't have a 3DS. So when the game comes out, I'll just have to watch badly-recorded videos of the game on the internet. :/ But thank you for another review! :D**

Carolyn and Owen were not speaking to each other. It made bus seat choosing difficult.

There was me, sitting uncomfortably in an aisle seat with a tearful Carolyn squashed between me and the window, as far from Owen as possible; Delly sat across from me in an aisle seat of her own with Owen hunched over resentfully in the seat next to her.

Delly and I traded one of those well-what-can-you-do looks.

It was with relief when the bus pulled up to the stop at the City. We hopped out together, Carolyn standing as far as she could from her mortal nemesis, and began to walk to the spot where supposedly we would meet Labelle.

"Hey," Labelle greeted us with a wave.

"Hi," I said as casually as I could, then I dropped my voice. "How are you doing?" It was something I had meant to ask her after she'd returned from the kidnapping – I know that can be quite traumatic for most people.

She lowered her volume too. "Okay, I think. I'm mostly relieved. If Tom Nook hadn't gone all terror-killer-psycho and abducted us, I wouldn't have started to heal things with my sisters. Speaking of, I spoke to Gracie; she's going to try to be less strict about my personal life."

"That's good," I said, smiling.

"What're up with Carolyn and Owen?" she asked curiously, looking over my shoulder to see Carolyn shooting a death glare at her ex.

"They broke up. Apparently Owen didn't even consider them to be in a relationship." I made a face. "He's a nice guy, but I don't know what we're going to do. Two mortal enemies trapped in my tiny house together?"

Labelle nodded sympathetically.

"Anyway, we got here a little early, so now we're just waiting on Damian."

On cue, he came, swaggering toward us with that trademark lecherous grin. It would have been cute if I hadn't seen him trying to seduce my new girlfriend not so long ago. When Damian caught sight of the group and realized that Delly had brought friends with her, I could see him flinch in horror and I couldn't restrain my smirk.

"Heyyy, Damian," I called up at him, and he did a double take as soon as he recognized me. Then a more pronounced flinch as he recognized Labelle.

"H-hey," he stammered.

"Heya," was Delly's contribution.

"Hi," he said again. Carolyn and Owen said nothing.

"Let's go see the show at the Marquee now. It's cold out." I admired the way Delly managed to project her voice so it sounded like she was talking to all of us, not just her date. I covertly high-fived her behind Damian's back.

"Right," said Damian, recovering himself. Then as we trooped into the Marquee entrance, I heard him whisper down to Delly, "You didn't tell me you were bringing your friends along!"

"You didn't tell me you had a girlfriend," she shot back triumphantly.

"Girlfriend?" He looked genuinely confused, and I slowed upon entering the theater.

"Yeah. Mari RaChase. Black tabby, comes in to dance at your nightclub?"

"No! C-Cordelia, I broke up with her ages ago. You don't understand. Mari finally got fed up with me and told me she was either going to dump me, or I had to…"

"Had to what?"

"…had to s-stop coming home with lipstick all over my collar." He looked guilty and morose. "But I'm through with that life now. I'm really trying to stop being such a flirt. I don't know what your friends told you about me, but…" He broke off and looked away. From my position in the doorway, I couldn't tell if he was faking it or not.

Delly glanced at me. _Is he telling the truth?_

I shrugged frantically.

She tilted her head to the Marquee entrance. _Go in. I'll catch up._

I trusted her, so I continued on my way in to the theater. Labelle was standing off to the side, looking awkward and lonely; the cause of this was Carolyn and Owen, whose tension was ricocheting off the walls and making the lobby feel quite uncomfortable.

I hurried over to Labelle and she smiled in relief. "I see you've been hiding under the pretense of reading the posters on the wall," I whispered to her. She blushed.

"Am I really that obvious?"

"Well, now you are. But it's okay. I'm going to talk to Carolyn later, tell her and Owen that they have to stop being so death-glarey at each other or one of them has to move out."

"Wait a few days first," Labelle advised. "Or you'll just seem overdramatic and cruel."

I agreed and started to read the wall posters with her. The silence began to stretch, with upset noises coming from Carolyn's end of the lobby that only accelerated the awkward feeling, and soon I glanced bewilderedly at Labelle: _What is taking Del and Damian so long?_

She shrugged. "Maybe they're fighting. Maybe Delly kicked his head off and is now fleeing from the cops. Given all of our run-ins with the authorities, I wouldn't ignore the theory," she whispered to me.

"Maybe they're making out," I whispered back, and proceeded to fill her in on what I had heard. "…so maybe Damian really is trying to be better, and Delly believes him, and now they're eloping. Or something like that."

"Well, as we're theoretically on a group outing together, I'm not waiting for them. Hey," she added, loudly, to Carolyn and Owen. "Have you picked out what you want to see yet?"

They glared resentfully at her.

"Fine. Then we're going in alone and leaving you two in the lobby unless you cooperate and help us decide on a show. C'mon, Aurora."

We each paid eight hundred bells to the clerk and went into a theater room, leaving Carolyn and Owen shocked and alone in the foyer of the Marquee. I didn't even notice what we picked to watch. But next thing I knew, Labelle and I were sitting together in theater seats, sharing a bag of popcorn. It hadn't intended to originally be a date between the two of us, but it was certainly shaping up to be one now.

"I'm going to go and get a soda," I breathed into her ear, taking advantage of how close the seats were pressed together. "I'll check on Delly and Damian along the way. You want anything?"

"Mm, one thing," she replied, grinning.

I left her saving my seat and went back into the lobby. Carolyn and Owen both looked miserable, hunched on opposite sides of the room. I sighed and walked past them. This was one thing they had to solve for themselves.

I carried a soda out around the building of the Marquee. "Delly?" I called.

"Aurora," came Delly's voice. She was perched on the edge of a small bench, looking perturbed. I came and sat next to her.

"What's up?"

"I talked to Damian." Her voice sounded flat and dead. "He was telling the truth. I called Mari through the number your sister used. Remember, in jail, when Holly called Mari and asked her to talk to Alice? I got the number from Al later on, on one of her visits."

"And?"

"I may have just ruined the only chance I'll get at true love." Delly glanced at me. "I know it sounds stupid and crazy, I mean, this guy turned us into jail, but if you think about it – a lot of people would have done the same thing if they overheard your conversation. I called Mari and it turns out he really is trying to stop being such a flirt. They broke up weeks ago."

"Why have you ruined your chance, though?"

"Damian was all insulted that I tried to sabotage the date by bringing friends. He left."

She was still speaking in a trancelike, odd sort of way. I took her paw and squeezed it.

"Do you want to come see the show anyway? I know this is hard for you to accept, but – well, there's hot buttered popcorn and soda that you can drown your pain in."

"That does sound nice," she admitted.

"Look. If Damian really likes you, and if he's really meant to be with you, then one little argument isn't going to change that. This is all my fault for being so suspicious of him, and I am really sorry."

Delly stood up. "It isn't your fault," she told me sincerely. "But it's really cold out here and I want to go into the warm theater and eat popcorn now, so when I walk away rudely it's not because I think you're a bad friend. Deal?"

I grinned and nodded. She turned abruptly and walked through the entrance of the Marquee. I had to stand for a few minutes in the cold, taking everything she had said in, before I followed.

**Oh. O.o I just realized how incredibly soap-opera-y this has gotten...**

**ANYWAY, thanks for reading! I can't say when the next chapter will be up, but it's hopefully going to have more Labelle/Aurora in it (and possibly Delly/Damian, and maybe even some Carolyn/someone new. I haven't decided what all the pairings are going to be yet).**


	41. Chapter 41

**(Aurora)**

To recap: the date went terribly for everyone but Labelle and I. Delly was still recovering from the shocking fact that Damian might actually not be just an annoying, cheating flirt. Damian had been hurt that she'd thought so and left early. Carolyn and Owen still weren't speaking to each other, Carolyn wouldn't talk to anybody else anyway; and pretty soon Delly was sharing the silent treatment.

Delly was mute because I had been the one telling her to watch out for Damian and to not go on the date alone, even though she had promised she wouldn't get mad about it. I know it sounds irrational that she'd be angry at me, but hey, that's love. Carolyn wasn't talking to me because if I hadn't urged her to talk to Owen, she was sure she would keep her boyfriend. See the aforementioned love and how it affects levels of irrationality.

I was spending a lot of time with Labelle these days.

Until one day, when Labelle and I were walking along the streets (it had been about a month now without much change; the weather was starting to get warmer) and decided to check out a department store. The last month had been hard on me. I would have felt better if my friends didn't live in my house, because when your friends dump you and you share the same living spaces it makes for incredibly frosty atmosphere. I missed them terribly and I also felt bad for them. But I didn't mention my pain to Labelle, because Labelle was the only time when I could escape from my sadness. I treasured those moments.

And then… "Aurie, want to check out that store over there?" Labelle said. We were in the City. Labelle had got me interested in clothing and designs, so sometimes when we had time, we would browse through the boutiques and check out different dresses. I thought loyally that none of them came close to Labelle's talent.

The building she was pointing out was very tall, and I knew we'd have to ride an elevator if we didn't want to lose our feet on the stairs, but I said sure anyway. I don't like elevators. I'm not claustrophobic or anything, but the idea of being so high up with only cords and a few metal rods stopping us from certain death wasn't favorable to me.

We entered the department store and started looking around on the bottom floor. "I like this one," Labelle said almost immediately. She was holding a black blouse out from the rack. It had mesh fabric around the chest, and I recognized it when I got close.

"Didn't you make something like this?" I said, pulling the shirt off the rack and inspecting it more closely. "Wow. They've sunk to the level of having to steal ideas from other stores even in the same City. Although at least they have enough standards to pick GracieGrace."

Labelle chuckled and swatted me. "No. I made one in red, sure, with rose patterns. That's not the same as plain black. I told you you needed lessons in designing."

"Look at this." I pushed through the rack until I found a dark blue pair of leggings. "Yeah. They are stealing from you. You have this exact one in the Employees Only room at GracieGrace."

"And how would they get their hands on something from the Employees Only room?" Labelle teased, but she was smiling.

I shrugged. "How much do you trust Britney, that human who's filled in for you a couple times? From what I hear, she isn't exactly devoted to keeping precious designer secrets."

Labelle snorted.

"Come on. It could be Britney. Isn't she the only one who works there apart from you and Gracie?"

"There isn't much chance of her being smart enough to steal secrets, much less remember them long enough," Labelle told me seriously.

I laughed a little too, though I felt guilty talking about the other human behind her back.

"C'mon, Aurora. Let's go check the other floors, okay? Let's go look at classy prom dresses; those are always fun to try on." I agreed with the idea, putting the blue pants back onto the rack, and we circled the store until we found the elevator.

Labelle pushed the button and the doors started to automatically close. "Hold the door! Please hold the door!" came a voice I recognized. In came Delly, her eyes averted from us, and then Carolyn and Alice, looking furtively over their shoulders – they hadn't seen the current occupants of the elevator yet.

Just as the doors started to close on us again to make the longest and most awkward elevator ride I have ever been in, Owen dashed up and slid into the elevator with a very feminine cat hanging onto his arm; followed by Damian, coming into the elevator alone.

The elevator doors mercifully slid shut before anyone else I previously had difficulties with could enter.

**For the next few chapters, I'm going to do different points of views leading up to the elevator ride. The next one is Delly's, since she enters the elevator next.**


	42. Chapter 42

**(Delly)**

Delly missed Aurora too. She knew she shouldn't be angry, especially as she had told Aurie firsthand how little resentment she had for her, but she needed to be angry at someone. And with Carolyn giving everyone else the silent treatment, she couldn't be mad at her, and she didn't know Owen well enough to direct her ire at him. So Aurora got the other end of her hate.

She'd finally decided to get out and around. Maybe she could find Damian and apologize to him. So she rode on the bus to the City, unwittingly on the same vehicle carrying Aurora, and went directly to Negative Zero as soon as she disembarked.

Damian wasn't there. "Where is he, then?" Delly asked miserably, too tired to get mad.

"He's taking the day off, sweetheart. I'd check around clothing stores – he's a stickler for fashion. Have these on the road," said a kind lady waiter. She handed Delly a small box of cookies and wished her luck on finding Damian, but not before sympathetically asking her to stay and work out the tension she was obviously carrying on the dance floor. Delly declined.

Clothes. Obviously she checked out GracieGrace first. She didn't see Damian anywhere, but a young deer that oddly reminded her of Carolyn pointed her out to a large department store. "I saw him heading that direction," the deer said, running a hand through the fur beneath his antlers. "Good luck."

"Thank you," she muttered, and started walking. A very feminine cat with bracelets all down one arm and anklets down the opposite leg brushed past her, squealing and running away from something.

"Help! Police!" she yelled, losing her head completely. Delly shook her head and walked past the cat, barely noticing that the place the latter had fled from was the very department store she had planned on entering.

She didn't see Damian in the department store. But after all, it was a very, very large store. Thinking she'd go check around in the Men's Fashion section, Delly searched the store for an elevator, finally finding one just as the doors were beginning to shut.

"Hold the door! Please hold the door!" she managed to say. A slender human hand curled around the edge of the door and held it for Delly while she trotted in. It was barely a second later when she realized she'd walked into the elevator holding none other than Labelle and Aurora, but she couldn't back out now. She took a deep breath and waited for the doors to slide shut.

But before they could fully close, two other people she recognized arrived. Alice and Carolyn were glancing about themselves, almost as if they were trying to hide something.

"Are…" Delly began in a whisper, heard by no one but herself, but before she could raise her voice and finish her sentence, Owen entered the elevator. Clutching his arm tightly was the cat Delly had seen screaming for cops on the sidewalk outside.

Just as Delly began to think this would be the most awkward elevator ride in her life, a man she had gone to the City to find ducked into the elevator directly following Owen. Damian, Carolyn, Alice, Delly, Aurora, Labelle, the female cat, and Owen all stood there awkwardly for a moment as the doors closed and the elevator began to rise.

**The next one will be Alice and Carolyn, because they were the next to enter the elevator, and it'll go on like that. Thanks for reading.**


	43. Chapter 43

**(Carolyn and Alice)**

"Sweetie, you need to get out," was Alice's advice when Carolyn finally called her. Their friendship had slowly healed over the many times Alice came to visit Falcon. "Stop worrying over this boy. He didn't want to be in a relationship, you ended it, now you need to get out and do something. You're gonna drive yourself crazy if you just sit around moping."

"But Owen –"

"But Owen doesn't deserve you. I'll meet you at the Falcon City in half an hour by the fountain." Alice hung up before Carolyn even thought about protesting.

Carolyn said nothing, but personally she agreed with the sentiment. She did need to get out and about. After all, Aurora had already left the house, Owen had disappeared, and Delly was putting on a coat with the intention of going out too, it seemed. Why couldn't she tag along? Obviously she wouldn't let her friends know she was coming with them, but it would just be boring and lonely without them around.

She boarded the bus shortly before Delly did and spent most of the time watching the scenery flash by out the window. She did not see Aurora settle down in the seat directly in front of her, and it seemed Delly was also not aware of the human's presence.

Carolyn was the first to disembark from the bus. She walked quickly around the City – her criminal instincts had not worn away yet; one of them was to not stay too long in any public place – until she could discern the outline of the fountain through the sinking fog. Alice was waiting casually there, looking a lot less insecure than the fox Carolyn thought she knew.

"You ready?" Alice asked.

"For what?"

"Duh. Having fun. Like we used to, remember?"

"What? When?"

"Oh, you know. I was always in the back to save my reputation as a shy, but the whole gang used to go on raids and stuff. Steal stuff. Remember?"

Carolyn looked taken aback. "I'm not going to shoplift stuff!"

"Aww, c'mon. It'd be fun, Carrie."

"No…"

"We'd just take like a few things from a couple stores, nothing serious like before. Besides…" Alice gestured meaningfully at Carolyn's feet. She was wearing the pink stripy socks that she had hastily pocketed from Tom Nook's shop without either Delly or Aurora seeing.

"This is different, Al! I took the socks because Tom Nook was a kidnapper. His shop would have closed down anyway. And you know I love fuzzy socks," Carolyn said, trying to rationalize it. A hint of her stutter came back in the next sentence. "B-besides, h-he had k-kidnapped Labelle. Aurora's girl. We w-were there to stop a crime, what does it matter if I taught the old bastard a lesson?"

"You know that's not why you took from his shop. You didn't want to shoplift to get back at him, you stole because you wanted to have the socks for yourself."

"They're just socks."

"Are socks what your soul is worth?"

Carolyn started to cry. "Shut up, Alice! I know it was wrong and I know I d-deserve this, but p-please give m-me a break."

"Come on, Carrie. You stole from Tom Nook's, you already corrupted yourself, what does it matter if you take anything else?"

"I'm going home, Alice. You're a really, really bad influence and I'm g-going to stay away from you f-from now on."

"If that's what you want," said Alice in a superior air.

Carolyn started to march away, but Alice came running up. "Okay, I didn't know you actually meant it, Care. Listen, what if we go to one store and what if _I _steal something? You don't have to, and I'll take the fall for everything."

"Damn right you will," said Carolyn under her breath, but she was nervous. The police already had something against her, and would probably jump to the conclusion that the perpetrator was a hardened criminal rather than an innocent-looking fox.

Alice clapped her hands, taking Carolyn's muttered words a phrase of surrender. "Yay! How about that big department store?" the fox said, grabbing Carolyn's hand in a viselike grip and pointing over to a large clothing warehouse. It wasn't as well-known as GracieGrace, but the clothes there were reasonably well-made.

Before Carolyn could answer Alice's rhetorical query, she was being dragged toward the department store with her friend's hand still clamped around her wrist. "C'mon," said Alice, serious again. "This place has tons of good stuff. And it's so big they can't get employees watching customers all the time. Seriously, Carrie, you're missing out."

"That's your opinion," Carolyn mumbled as they slipped unobtrusively into the store.

They spent a good ten minutes on the bottom floor, Alice discreetly checking out thin slippery black dresses and little boxes of jewelry. Finally, she glanced around, reached expertly into an open glass case and snatched one of the many gold necklaces from its holder. At first, Carolyn thought they had gotten away with it as Alice stuffed the bling down her sleeve. Then a purse thudded to the floor.

A very feminine cat with bangles up one arm and anklets down the opposite leg was staring at them. She backed away, eyes wide, and turned to flee through the doors. Carolyn and Alice heard her shout something like "Help! Police!" as the doors slowly closed behind her.

"Well, shit," Alice said bluntly. "Let's go hide on one of the upper floors. If we leave the store now we'll look guilty. C'mon, there's an elevator this way."

"Who is this 'we' you keep talking about?" asked Carolyn nervously, but allowed herself to be tugged away from the glass jewelry case. Alice headed over to an elevator she had spotted earlier and pulled her best friend into the closing gap, both of the two glancing anxiously behind them as they did. Carolyn had barely breathed a sigh of relief when she turned and saw Delly and Aurora watching her inscrutably.

Alice and Carolyn looked at the floor of the elevator and fidgeted, trying to pretend that the others weren't there. Carolyn wasn't really mad at either of her friends, although as she wasn't speaking to anyone except Alice it was easy to interpret her silence as anger; but she was slightly ashamed because she felt like she was caught stealing again. She didn't like the feeling, especially as Alice was the real criminal here. So she kept silent, fiddling with the cuff of her shirt and waiting for the doors of the elevator to slide shut.

Owen pushed his way into the elevator. For a second, Carolyn automatically shifted her cold, indifferent silence on, but the shield dropped when she saw who he was walking with. Quickly, Carolyn shot an anxious look at Alice: the girl hanging onto Owen's arm was the cat that had seen them steal the necklace.

Alice's grip tightened on Carolyn's wrist.

The cat looked frightened for a second and exchanged a look with Owen, but before Carolyn and Alice could dart out of the elevator, another man walked inside the tiny room: Damian. Carolyn thought she heard Delly catch her breath.

_Oh boy,_ was what was running through both Carolyn and Alice's heads. _This elevator ride is going to be fun._

**Thanks for reviewing, Supershadowdan12!**

**We're almost to the ending now, just so everyone's aware. I'm (probably) going to start work on another story soon, but it won't be a sequel to this one unless I am suddenly struck by inspiration.**

**Next up is Owen. Remember, he isn't really bad, he just tried to break up with Carolyn and kind of went with the "cruel" tone instead of the tactful one.**


	44. Chapter 44

**(Owen)**

They were out of milk. Owen didn't have any big reason for going to the City, like the rest – he wasn't desperately trying to right a wrong, he wasn't chasing after someone who could have been a friend, he wasn't even trying to stay out of everyone else's way.

Don't get Owen wrong. He regretted the things he had said to Carolyn. He wished he could have broken up with her without letting out the venom tongue that was most certainly uncalled for. But he wasn't going to the City because of her, unless Carolyn was the one who had taken the last of the milk.

(It wasn't her. Actually, it was Candice, on one of her frequent uninvited trips into Aurora's house.)

As Tom Nook had been hauled away for his kidnapper status, there wasn't a good store in town anymore. Nook's old store wasn't in use. First of all, he didn't have any other employees to take over from him, and second, no one in town wanted to replace a kidnapper. So Owen made his way to the bus stop, catching an earlier bus than the rest of our protagonists, and headed off to the City.

He missed Carolyn, really. And the rest of them. Aurora wasn't speaking to him, as far as he knew, because the horrible things that he had let slip to one of her best friends. Carolyn wasn't speaking to him because of the same thing. Delly had progressed to the stage where she barely spoke to anybody. Household Swann was just a boiling little storm cloud with people holding in their feelings, and sooner or later, they were all going to lash out at each other.

Owen got off the bus and found a little store that sold milk. There was someone else in the store, someone vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it. "Good morning," he said, attempting to make the person turn around so he could see their face.

"Good morning," said a musical, girlish voice. The other human lowered the magazine and turned to face Owen. He still had that nagging feeling that he had seen her before, but he couldn't think where.

"Well, I… I'm sorry to bother you. I'll be going now." He slid past her, glancing back in confusion; the woman was smirking as if she recognized him. It made him shudder.

Owen had already left the store when he realized the woman had befuddled him enough that he had forgotten to buy milk. "Shit," he mumbled, and started to turn around, but then a cry from the street distracted him.

"Help! Police!"

In a second he was there. A female cat with odd taste in jewelry automatically latched onto the sleeve of his jacket. "What's wrong, miss?" he asked, frowning. The girl cat desperately pointed in the direction of the building she had just left.

"Someone stole! I watched 'em… they just reached into the jewl'ry cabinet and took a gold necklace out of it!"

"What's your name?" Owen asked as he curiously shuffled toward the department store, wailing girl on his arm. _Overreaction,_ his mind immediately diagnosed. _Probably she just saw someone looking closely at the jewelry, maybe picking it up._

"Kayleigh," the cat said, sniffling. "Are you going to call the police?"

"I don't have a phone on me, Kayleigh. But we can go and look for the burglars. I bet that they were really scared to see you, maybe if we go back they'll drop the goods and run."

"I d-don't want to go b-back inside." Something in her stutter reminded him of Carolyn, and Owen was surprised to notice that he missed it. He only wanted Carolyn as a friend, but maybe the unreciprocated relationship was better than this. At least they were on good terms with each other then.

Owen patiently assured her that the 'burglars' would more likely run than try to hurt them, if in fact they were still in the store at all. He one-handedly pushed open the store door and looked around blearily – the lights in the store were dimmer than he was expecting – and Kayleigh let out a whisper-shriek.

"There! Going toward the elevator!"

"Well, let's go and look, then," Owen suggested, hauling the protesting cat behind him. He grabbed the edge of the elevator as it was closing and went in. You know what happens next – he reacted in shock to the occupants of the elevator, and even more so when Kayleigh gestured frantically towards Carolyn and Alice.

Owen had intended to just take a peek around the elevator and leave once Kayleigh had spotted the criminals, but the surprise of having Carolyn be the perpetrator rooted him to his feet. Before he knew it, Damian, whom he recognized from the not-date, had entered and blocked the only escape route as the doors slowly closed. The elevator began to rise.

Owen mentally repeated his earlier curse. "Shit."

* * *

Damian took a day off from work to buy clothes at the department store. He walked into the elevator at the exact right moment to find the entire group from the failed date, plus one overly hyper female cat and one suspicious-looking fox, waiting for him. His story isn't that exciting, so let's skip right to the actual elevator ride, shall we?

**(The following will be spoilers if I ever decide to do a sequel to this:)**

**The human woman that Owen encounters in the store is actually the one who tried to mug him back when Carolyn was part of a girl gang. She's really the one who started all this.**


	45. Chapter 45

The elevator began to rise. I looked around at everybody, my hand tight over Labelle's, and tried to pretend like I couldn't feel the increasing awkwardness and the different emotions filling the air. One elevator is not big enough for this kind of stress. Maybe it was fate that pushed us together, maybe something in the universe pushed us all into a place where we had to say those two words. The two words we couldn't say in my house.

"I'm sorry."

Carolyn. Owen. Delly. Damian. Me. We all said those two words unanimously, involuntarily. And all of a sudden, we were confessing all those thoughts and feelings that we'd been holding in ever since Carolyn's innocence was spoken for by the judge:

"I'm so sorry, Damian, I didn't ever –"

"Carolyn, I was awful, I mean it –"

"Cordelia, I'm so sorry, I acted like a stupid little –"

All of us apologized and reassured each other. Alice looked around at all of us like we were mad, and finally rolled her eyes and walked forward. She handed off a gold necklace she'd been keeping up her sleeve over to a small very feminine cat that had entered the elevator with Owen. I will never know what that was all about.

"…so, SO sorry…"

"Delly, I know I was all suspicious and paranoid of Damian, but I…"

"…all right, Owen, I know, I know you never meant to say…"

"Aurie, it wasn't your fault…"

"…doesn't mean I h-have to like it, but I'm willing to live with it."

"Thank you."

We were all speaking at the same time, filling the elevator with emotions again, but this time there wasn't a wall of hostility. We were finally letting everything out.

Labelle and I got off at our floor, Damian invited Delly up to a higher floor, and I think Carolyn and Owen decided to try to be friends. Alice and the hyperactive cat disappeared. I think, and I'm not positive about this, but I think the fox was going to try to teach the other girl how to shoplift.

Our friendship wasn't perfect, there were millions of tiny cracks in the system, but you fix those cracks one by one and get over it. We let ours build up, and the result was it wasn't perfect – but we were willing to try.

Even though the friendship between us had been through some major storms, we'd gotten through. And we'd continue to get through for many years after that, celebrating the good times – like when Owen bought a house of his own, and when Alice moved in (!); like when I got married; like when Delly found out she was somehow pregnant.

Of course, there were bad times, too, like when Carolyn and Candice suddenly became best friends; when Mabel actually did die; and when Delly found out she was somehow pregnant.

The end.

**A million thanks to everyone who favorited / followed / reviewed this!**

**If you want a sequel, PM me and I'll think about it...**


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